


Expedient

by swiftkick



Category: Naruto
Genre: A lot of Ship-teasing, All Characters Are Morally Dubious, All Shinobi are Conditioned Mercenary Vassals for the State, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Breaking Through Manipulation, Character Development, Characters Without Clans Get Shit Stirred Up, Everyone Is A Hot Mess (Besides Ino), F/M, Female Characters, Feminist Themes, Gen, Manipulation, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Romance, Missing-Nin, Naruto and Sasuke are Minor Characters, Ninja Villages are Scrutinzed, Not Anime Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Original Plot, Psychological Trauma, Sakura Gets Into Fights A Lot, Strong Haruno Sakura, Symbolism, Uchiha Itachi is Not Infallible, character introspection, slow build plot, women get shit done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:05:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 59,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftkick/pseuds/swiftkick
Summary: Konoha and Iwa sign a treaty and agree to a "Genin Exchange Program" to foster better relations between the two countries. While it appears diplomatic on the surface, both villages use the opportunity to undercut and spy on one another. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong on the mission, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing.With Deidara as her jounin instructor, Sakura thinks she might not survive the year. ...He thinks she'll do just fine.





	1. Part I. How Good It Can Be

 

 

o o o

 

_'cause when I look at you, you look right back at me_

 

o o o

Two men, well on in years and both sporting white hair, stood on the observation deck of the Hokage Tower, their traditional Kage robes billowing with the breeze. The official council meeting between their respective villages had ended and now each man was reflecting on the subsequent agreed upon proposition.

Sarutobi realized he would have to speak first.

"So just one, is that right?" He asked, though it was redundant and meant only to get the conversation started.

His companion, someone far from ever being a friend, snorted.

The other man's red nose scrunched with unhappy white wrinkles as he glowered. The menacing effect was lost on Sarutobi, but the displeasure was palpable in his voice. "We wouldn't be reckless enough to send an entire genin squad for you all to  _'look after._ ' I don't like what my advisers and Daimyou say about this nonsense – not at all! Have they forgotten what it is ninja do?" The Tsuchikage said. "Eh, but _I'm_ _just the_ military _leader."_

In the official meeting, neither Kage had much sway over the Daimyou, who each seemed to see some importance in themselves when there wasn't any jutsu thrown around to remind them of their very evident mortality in the world outside their protected compounds.

"There's no helping it when they've made up their minds," the man grumbled in conclusion. "They can't survive without us, we can't survive without them."

Sarutobi looked away from the Tsuchikage in order to hide his bemused smile. There was no pleasing this one, he thought. Of course, he too had his reservations about the innovative exchange program. The villages were in a constant state of trying to outmaneuver the other, even in times of peace and under the guise of treaties. Iwa and Konoha in particular had a tendency to double-cross the other; it had been a long while since the villages and countries had been on good terms.

Which might be why the councils were willing to try out this experiment; it could be the first step in exploring other potential - most importantly lucrative - avenues between the villages. And there was also the looming threat of rogues in Akatsuki moving in the darkest shadows that had all the Five Great Nations on edge. Everyone was anxious, everyone wanted an advantage, however they could get it.

Sarutobi suspected that the Tsuchikage would use the exchange program in a more conventional sense: to learn as much about the Hidden Leaf's forces, fighting abilities, and tactics as possible. And some on the Leaf's side would undoubtedly feel inclined to do just the same. Sarutobi had suggested the exchange have a one year time frame and be for younger ninja for just the purpose of discouraging such offenses. Or, at the minimum, perhaps minimizing the damage that would surely come with the swap.

What he had to do now was find the most promising candidate who was at once a shining example of Konoha's stock and  _also_  absolutely worthless in terms of clan techniques, special abilities, or any other outstanding skills that could compromise the inviolability of the village. Sarutobi had to choose someone who was competent, but otherwise undistinguished. He needed someone  _unremarkable._

o o o

Her name was Haruno Sakura.

The problem was - Iruka had not called it out in order for her to be placed on a genin team. Her entire graduating academy class was gathered in their homeroom and everyone had been placed on a team. Even Naruto, whom she thought had not passed the exam but somehow still showed up alongside the rest of them with a gleaming hitai-ate, was standing next to Sasuke in what was apparently the two genin squad of Team Seven.

The boy who was arguably the most troublesome and unpromising student with which the academy had ever dealt was now in a team and Sakura was not. He and Sasuke had been the last graduates called down and  _she was not._  There could not have been a more appropriate time for the floor beneath her to open wide and swallow her whole. Had her life really degenerated to the point where  _Naruto_  was surpassing her? The boy who s _kipped lecture_  and harassed his sensei for  _fun_? The Number One Drop Out surpasses the Number One Know-it-All.

She was alone in the stadium seating and Iruka announced that was it for the team placements. Sakura could not believe it, and by some of the looks her classmates were throwing her, she was not alone in her complete lack of comprehension as to how she had not been assigned any team. It was a well known fact that she was an obnoxious overachiever when it came to written tests and at least passable in practical exercises. She was even dubbed to be the teacher's pet as Iruka had a habit of calling her name for an answer when no one else opted to give him one – and she was always right.  _Always!_ The humiliation was suffocating and she looked back at her sensei, silently willing him to explain himself.

From her seat across the aisle, Ino was staring a hole into the back of Sakura's head and she could tell her long time friend and recent rival was going to ask their teacher herself if Sakura didn't say anything soon.

Iruka told the class that while he was sad to dismiss them for the final time as their teacher, he was proud of them. "You are to report to your new squad leaders now. Class dismissed."

He then called Team Seven to the front of the room. Sakura watched as Naruto and Sasuke made their way to their sensei's desk, wishing with all her heart that she could have been paired with them, even if she would have had to put up with Naruto's undignified abrasiveness and Sasuke's aloof demeanor. She sighed, knowing it wasn't possible, and turned to leave.

"Oh, and Sakura, would you come up here as well?"

Sakura stopped short, not sure if she had imagined Iruka's voice out of desperation. She looked over her shoulder to check, just to be sure. Her instructor was smiling gently and motioning for her to join him. Sasuke eyed her with mild interest, which made something wonderful swell in her chest at his acknowledgement, while Naruto grinned as she turned back around.

Stubbornly, she willed away the glassy feeling of unshed tears.  _You're okay, you're okay,_ she told herself.

And then she thought about how despicably useless she must have been to not have been put onto a team! She was  _not_  okay. No jounin sensei, no squad, no missions! Would she have to  _repeat a year?_ Did they review her exams and determine there had been a mistake? That she wasn't worthy of her genin status after all? Sakura physically shuddered. All those dedicated hours to studying and memorising, and working to adjust her throwing aim because of the slight bowing of her arms, all those days trying to attain the perfect body and image of a demure, unsuspecting Leaf kunoichi...and she had failed.

"Yes, sensei?" Sakura said as she approached, still wary of whether or not it was a good thing he had asked her down.

"I have some exciting news for you guys," Iruka said, piquing Sakura's curiosity and stoking the little spark of hope she still had. "The three of you have been chosen to participate in a new arrangement between Konoha and Iwa."

"The three of us?" Naruto barked, a bit obtusely, but he was considerate enough not to add the obvious, ' _but Sakura-chan didn't even get a team! No offence, Sakura-chan!'_

Though, honestly, she wondered the same thing.

"Sakura has a placement, too," Iruka supplied happily, reading her thoughts.

Sakura felt wings sprout from her shoulders as she positively died with delirious relief.

He continued, "though she's not going to be joining Team Seven with you two."

She promptly crashed back to the ground. She hesitated. "I don't understand, Iruka-sensei. Why am I not on their team?"

"That's your part in the new program, Sakura. Instead of being paired with Sasuke and Naruto here on Team Seven, you have been elected to train abroad in Iwa while a ninja from that village will come train with these two in your place."

Sakura stared at her teacher – her kind, wonderful sensei who she liked very much and who was currently screwing with her life plans.

"Excuse me, sensei," she said delicately, not entirely succeeding, "are you trying to say I was going to be partnered with Sasuke-kun – and Naruto – but because of this new treaty, I am being shipped off to a foreign country to work under 'enemies-until-five-days-ago' instead?"

Iruka wanted her dead. She had maybe suspected it once or twice during weapons training, but she really knew it now. She'd been given a suicide mission.

"This is a great honour for the three of you. You have all been chosen as esteemed representatives of the village. And Sakura, there wasn't another ninja considered for your role the program," Iruka told her warmly, oblivious to the minor conniption she was suffering.

As daunting as the whole endeavour sounded, Sakura immediately perked up at hearing her unchallenged nomination and the complete mortification from earlier, along with her flaring indignation, dissipated. She asked, sceptical, "not even Ino?"

"She doesn't have the preferred qualifications for this position."

The wings returned and began to flutter tentatively. Again Sakura's gaze slid to Sasuke and she valiantly withheld a grin when she saw his normally impassive face regarding her with something that  _must_  have been close to approval. Certainly very nearly almost interested, at least.

"Whoa! How cool, Sakura-chan! Hey, hey, I always knew you were number one!" Naruto declared from beside her, and she couldn't help the grateful twist of her lips. The blonde was not so terrible all the time...he did have a habit of cheering for her when no one else felt so inclined. Sakura returned Naruto's smile, and knocked back at his elbow when he nudged her happily.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the display, and noticing, she calmed down.

"How does this sound, Sakura?" Iruka asked, and his pride for his student's was evident in his expression. And more emotions, too, that she saw shining briefly in his eyes.

There was really only one response. "It sounds great."

And so, from there, Sakura had been ushered to the Hokage's office, where she and her parents listened to a more formal briefing about the exchange. In the room were staffers, different village interests representatives, the council members, and even the Third himself. A chuunin staffer told her the scheduled departure time, suggested what she bring, described how her living environment would be, explained acceptable manners and cultural expectations, and gave her scrolls with all this information and more written down for her to look over again later. Her civilian parents took everything in with enthusiasm and didn't seem at all deterred that their daughter would be gone for a whole year.

It was starting to sink in for Sakura. The staffers shuffled her parents off for their own orientation with the program and then she was alone in the three chairs at the Hokage desk. In the room were the ANBU guards, quiet and stiff in their watch, and a foursome of the Third and the council members, busy in a mumured conversation between themselves for the moment. One of them turned to Sakura and the conversation cut off abruptly. He waved his good arm in curt annoyance at the others, including their village leader, and walked towards where she sat a few paces away.

While Sakura knew two of the elder council members, as they were as well known and respected as the Third, the man approaching her was someone she had never seen before. His obvious battle experience, judging from the amount of injuries and scars, made her nervous. The bandages wrapped around him and his eerily controlled posture made reading him difficult. He stopped in front of her and she leapt from her seat to attention.

"Haruno, you must understand the obligations you have as a Leaf nin going into this," the man said, not bothering to introduce himself. "While you are away, you will be the only Konoha operative remaining in the Hidden Stone Village. Contact will be limited through messenger birds."

"But I was just told I could write home – my parents –" Sakura started, but the Third interrupted her.

"The information you are to relay directly to the Hokage Tower is only that which you deem pertinent to the well-being of our village," he clarified, sounding a bit tired.

"Anything suspicious, anything relevant to our interests, anything curious in their operations. Even if you believe it to be inconsequential, leave that for our analysts to decide," the bandaged man said. "In this scroll are several codes and algorithms you are to memorise and destroy before you leave. Use one of these for what you have to write."

Sakura took a step forward to accept the scroll and was surprised when the man caught her wrist firmly. The Third grumbled at this, though didn't call out for the man to stop, and she was left to stare at her superior.

"Use this time to help your village and to represent Konoha as a strong and accomplished member of our ranks. This is your first official mission as a Leaf kunoichi. Keep vigilant."

His voice was sturdy, a touch aggressive, and one that commanded authority. She nodded. "Yes, sir. Affirmative, sir. Thank you."

Sakura reclaimed her wrist as soon as the offending grip was loose, and snatched it back to her chest. There was an overwhelming aura about the unnamed man that made her skin crawl and blood cool in her toes. In her very bones, she told herself she wouldn't disappoint him.

"Don't hesitate if there is an emergency." Sarutobi considered her. "We're expecting the same play from the Iwa nin, so don't feel guilty using this peaceful delegation as a means to gather intelligence."

"Of course, Hokage-sama," she answered, bowing low. "I accept my mission."

The Third smiled, but as it had been for Iruka, again Sakura thought the expression didn't quite reach his eyes.

o o o

The mild, subtropical climate of Fire Country was the only environment Sakura had ever known. In contrast, Stone's arid desert terrain was like entering a giant red and grey kiln. By the time her caravan had passed over the border, she was already succumbing to heat exhaustion. Just walking was a tedious task.

"This is going to do wonders for my hair," Sakura lamented, gently petting at her long locks. She sighed, too tired and grumpy to even keep her arms raised very long.

"You don't need to worry about your hair," the man walking besides her said. Sakura tentatively smiled – but then he said, "if you're this tired from our travelling already, then you to think about training more." He said this with an honest, cheerful expression and without any condescension. Unlike herself, his clothes were pristine and his shortly cut hair hardly looked tousled at all. She didn't spy any sweat on his exposed nape.

Sakura rolled her eyes and thought about hitting him out of frustration and some small amount of jealousy.

He was wrong about that first part. The escort nin was a man and he didn't have to take special "kunoichi lessons" on feminine skills, demeanor, appearances and attractiveness, and ultimately – though it made her internally gag to admit it –  _seduction_.

"A girl has got to look her best, you know," Sakura said instead, sweetly mimicking his tone. He had the glorious ignorance of not understanding just how acutely women were picked apart for their visual displays. ...Ah, to be so lucky.

The man, who had introduced himself as Yamato, gave her an odd smile coupled with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, is that so?" he asked vaguely, and his interest quickly turning elsewhere.

Sakura returned her attention to the landscape as well, wishing terribly for better company. Of the people with whom she was travelling, Yamato alone had deigned to speak to her for more than a few sentences. Once all the questions having to do with her excitement and trepidation about the exchange had been used up, there had been very little else that anyone seemed to want to know about from her. They could have at least asked her about her background. Shouldn't they be impressed that a first generation ninja had been chosen to take this mission? Surely they were curious about her marks and qualifications, about her possible secret weapons or jutsu.

But apparently not. The next thing she heard out of her four travelling companions was that they were about to meet up with the Iwa nin. Which meant that already her days of hiking, climbing, and endlessly sweating was coming ever nearer to the end.

"Well, this is the place," Yamato said, staring out across the landscape that Sakura could have sworn was pretty much the same place it had been for the past week. It was in such tricky environments like this that ninja worked solely from coordinates, which wasn't troublesome for her, as she had her own strengths with survival skills. She had never been one to landmark.

"I only see the vaguely similar rock formations I've been staring at since we entered this country," Sakura remarked, blandly squinting into the distance. She wasn't immediately aware of the dirt at her feet moving.

"Figures this is the calibre of shinobi that the Leaf produces, eh," said the dirt, making Sakura startle. She jumped away, bumping into Yamato accidentally. The older nin was nonplussed by the fact that the  _ground was talking_.

Only, it wasn't so much the ground as the man who formed out of it. A mouth appeared, eyes, a hand and an arm. He looked like a moving statue as he pulled himself upward, his body taking better shape and more human qualities as he did so. Finally, there was a fully formed, flesh and blood person standing before her. An Iwa nin, by the uniform. Another had sprouted up on the other side of the group.

The man in front of Sakura leaned forward, his bright hair matching his white, cocky smile. "Welcome to Stone, yeah, little kunoichi!"

Sakura could not keep the bewildered expression off her face. "Good to be here," she said dryly.

"Oh,  _great_. It's this louse. Shiro no Hitsuji, The Fluffy Ickle White Sheep of Iwa," the young Konoha jounin just behind Yamato groused. Humour in her voice, "couldn't the Tsuchikage have taken us just a bit more seriously?"

The man sputtered for a second, mirroring Sakura's own incredulous look. "You! And it's not 'sheep', you filthy pest! I'm Iwa's Shining Great White Ram! The Blazing Urial of the Red Desert, protector of the –"

"How's my little fleecy friend doing these days?" Sakura ducked slightly as the woman moved forward to take the Iwa nin into a headlock, messing his hair.

"Stop comparing magnificent urials to your docile pets, yeah! Just because Fire Country isn't blessed enough to be home to anything other than common livestock!" Profanities and curses on the woman's household followed.

"Yamato-san..." Sakura started.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan. Those two go  _way_  back."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Yuuji was Kiyomi's first attempted-assassin. She kept swapping out clones of herself with frogs until he began cursing the bog around them, convinced a witch had trapped him in a perilous and infinite illusion. She's had a bit of soft spot for him ever since."

Kiyomi was currently suffocating the Iwa nin against the side of her chest. She laughed louder as his face grew redder.

Sakura worried that the Exchange Program was going to end before she even got to the Stone's hidden village.

"Hell, this guy was such a cutie when he failed to kill me that I took him out for drinks afterwards just to cheer him up!" Kiyomi was pulling the back of the man's shirt up over his head.

"Excuse me?" Sakura turned to look at the other Iwa nin that had spoken up. She looked to be in her teens, though it was hard to be certain as she was wearing a heavily layered outfit from head to toe. Her head and hair were covered to obscure most of her face, giving the impression of a very timid person. "Kiyomi-san, could you please release my sensei. His ego is very fragile."

" _Meiko!_  It's not  _fragile,_  come on," said sensei protested, groaning.

Kiyomi snorted and opened her arms, giving Yuuji a hearty clap on the shoulder as he stumbled forward.

"Good to see you still have your upbeat attitude, Yuu- _chan_. And I like your student..."

Sakura followed their conversation curiously. She didn't understand how these people acted so carefree around one another. For as long as she could remember, Leaf and Stone had always been mortal enemies. How did Kiyomi treat someone who tried to  _kill_  her in such a friendly manner?

"Sometimes, you can't help making friends," Yamato said, noticing Sakura's puzzled gaze, "despite what your leadership tells you..."

The group continued moving, but Sakura didn't understand Yamato's words. Shinobi were different from regular people; they carried out orders and did their duty no matter what. Friendships had nothing to do with it. ...Not that Kiyomi or Yuuji would have agreed with that sentiment. As they walked the last part of the trip, the "old pals" were easy in each other's presence. The Leaf kunoichi continued to torture the 'Great White Ram' of Iwa, but it was obvious in his theatrical responses that he was actually fond of the attention.

Curious.

Sakura resolved to stay as professional as possible during her time in Iwa, unlike those two. As soon as they had been transported inside the village- by way of a seal as it was too risky to lead the outsiders there directly – she adopted a cool façade and hardened her nerves. If only Sasuke could see her now; surely he would have been amazed at her beautiful, dignified appearance –

Someone poured water over her head.

"Welcome to Iwagakure!" Another brightly coloured guard greeted, the dripping pail still outstretched towards Sakura's face. "You looked a bit hot, yeah. Though, you should be more careful, leaving yourself open to an attack like that! Such a shame, these Konoha nin don't know how to train their ranks."

"I like this guy, too," Kiyomi chirped, standing off to Sakura's side and completely dry from any water.

"Ah, thank you," Sakura managed to say, all the while internally berating herself to stay collected. Iwa nin were absolutely unreasonable and like unruly children, she decided, but she wouldn't let them get to her.

Yuuji appeared at Sakura's side. "So, Haruno, before we can allow you to meet the Tsuchikage, you understand that you will need you to pass through clearance."

It wasn't so much a question, but she slid her eyes to Yamato nervously, wanting to explain that, no, she didn't understand.

"You'll understand if we don't comply with the clearance check," Yamato replied.

"Not you certainly, just the girl. For precaution, of course."

Sakura started to shake her head, no, as a polite way to decline, but her escort answered for her. "As long as Kiyomi can attend, then that seems appropriate."

She was betrayed! That feeling of wanting to hit the amiable man returned. Shake some sense into him, maybe.

A clearance check, as Sakura discovered, was nothing of the cursory sort. Her entire body had been prodded, stretched, and scrutinised in every fashion possible.  _Every fashion_. Prison screenings might have balked at all the creative ways ninja examined one another.

But in the end, thankfully, the Iwa shinobi and medics declared her to be perfectly healthy and completely harmless. ...Which actually didn't seem such a positive evaluation result considering her chosen profession. Oh yes, how the Bingo Book would love to have her listed in its pages:  _Haruno Sakura, Konohagakure's Completely Harmless Kunoichi!_ Not that she would ever be the Bingo Book. Missing nin were not in her area of interest, let alone being one.

Distractedly, she wondered what was the book that ranked the non-missing nin of the villages? Did it exist? A cheat list of statistics, or something...dossiers, perhaps?

"That seemed like fun, kid," Kiyomi joked as they exited the jounin headquarters to walk to the Tsuchikage's tower. "Too bad we can't stay for your introductions."

Sakura would be entering the building by herself after her team picked up her exchange partner, and meeting her sensei with the Tsuchikage on her own.

"Hey, Yamato! Is that the pebble?" Kiyomi called out and Sakura tried not to roll her eyes at her escort's tactlessness as they reunited with the Konoha cell.

A few more Iwa nin had joined them while she had been busy with her "inspection." One was a finely dressed woman who immediately caught Sakura's attention, both for her looks, and her charming voice.

"Haruno-san? Nice to meet you. I'm Otsuka Tomiko, Iwa's diplomatic liaison for Konohagakure."

The woman bowed and Sakura did the same in return. "Pleased to meet you."

Otsuka smiled and then motioned to the boy standing beside her, the one labelled 'Pebble' by Kiyomi. "This is Teru-kun. He'll be training in Konoha while you're here."

It was difficult for Sakura to greet Teru with a straight face; the boy had a mane. His features were otherwise normal, dark red-brown hair, a symmetrical face, light eyes... But around his neck was a thick, fluffy collar of what looked like fur or some sort of animal hair. She could see the roots from where they started at the bottom of his neck. She surmised it might have been the result of his clan having some sort of animal affiliation or strange bloodline limit.

"My name is Sakura. I'm so happy to be here on such historic and momentous terms. I hope we both can serve our villages and the shared goal to further more diplomatic relations going into the future." She greeted him with her best, most dazzling charm and privately wondered how he could possibly survive in the desert heat with a thing like that wrapped around his head.

Teru lifted a shoulder. "'Sup," was his excruciatingly pleonastic response.

"Holy shit, does this kid ever stop talking?" Yuuji moaned and he winked at Sakura.

The liaison, Otsuka, at least was more enthusiastic. "From here you'll be directed up to Tsuchikage-sama's office. Your sensei has decided to go ahead and wait for you there as a more formal meeting."

A few more words and explanations were given, which Sakura studiously memorized, but all too soon her escort was preparing to leave and the situation suddenly started to weigh down on her. She was in a foreign ninja village and about to say goodbye to her only allies that she would see for the next year.

Despite having wanted to punch the man previously, Sakura was now sorely tempted to hug Yamato as he good-naturedly patted her head. His warm smile was somehow less annoying as he said goodbye, wishing her luck.

"Thank you, Yamato-taichou," she said evenly, concentrating on not letting her voice tremble. "Good bye."

With little fuss or circumstance, as shinobi were prone to do, the Leaf nin left; Yuuji and his pupil again transporting them out.

Sakura felt terribly isolated when the cloud from the jutsu had cleared.

Otsuka cleared her throat demurely to catch Sakura's attention. "I'll escort you up now, if you'd like. Your sensei will be the one to show you your housing."

Sakura didn't have much of a choice, so she followed the woman, chatting as they walked.

Unlike Konoha, which was architecturally and stylistically busy, Iwagakure was a muted canvas. Stone domes, stone spirals. There were remnants of what looked like masterful carvings, but years of neglect and environmental abuse had dulled any beauty that may have been. Everything was tones of tan and the same bumpy, rocky texture.

Which was why she couldn't help her mouth from falling open when they entered the Kage building. Sakura had never seen so many luxurious materials in one place before. The entire entryway was carved stone and gleaming from polish, the ceiling was an extensive, shining painting, the candelabras were gold and gem adorned, the carpets were antiques of rare aesthetics. Every bespoke surface was glinting with something rare and impossible to duplicate.

Sakura didn't know how a military operation could ever function in such an environment. Even the staircase banister was lined with pearl and carved from an exotic wood.

"This is unreal," she murmured.

Otsuka smiled, tight in the expression. Blushing, and just as quietly, "it's a little extravagant."

After several flights of stairs, they came to the top floor. It was painted in rich colours and lined with more carvings, art filled the walls, and crystal chandeliers segmenting the single hallway. There was a set of ornately designed doors at the end.

"Your sensei will greet you in there," Otsuka said, gesturing to the doors. "Ill see you around, Sakura. Please contact me any time if something concerns you. Take care and good luck!"

"Thank you for taking care of me." Then Sakura was really alone. Well, if she discounted the surveillance cameras she was certain were now recording her every move from a dozen angles. She gazed down the corridor, worried for the first time about her lack of back up.

Not that she could let the shinobi watching her see her hesitation. Sakura ordered her feet to move forward. The doors were heavy when she tried to open them, and she felt a bit clumsy when she tugged on them rather forcefully and ended up making a nice amount of commotion.

On their other side, she realised, was a small waiting room and another entrance to the actual office of the Tsuchikage. There was a guard stationed to its side and he gave her a questioning look at her unsubtle arrival.

"Ah, um, pardon me," she stammered.

The guard, who was almost as young as she was, smirked at her. "Oh, don't be embarrassed. You  _are_  a Leaf shinobi, yeah."

The sweet and tailored pretence she had been attempting to recapture deflated as she gave the guard a disgruntled scowl. It was a painful moment more before she reminded herself of  _dignity and refinement_. She cleared her throat, trying to match Otsuka's reserved manner. She ignored his comment and stated her business. "I have an appointment with the Tsuchikage."

"Oh? Nah. Pretty sure you don't."

A muscle twitched above Sakura's eye. "I was told I would be meeting my sensei here."

"Mm-hmm," the man –no,  _boy_ , answered non-committally.

"Well, could you alert your Kage that I'm here?"

"Nope."

Another muscle twitch, well on its way to becoming a spasm. "Fine then. Should I just wait here for my sensei?"

"Sure, you could do that, yeah," the guard agreed pleasantly, adopting a smiling veneer. It was a fake sort of expression, but Sakura took a seat on one of the couches nonetheless.

She shrugged off her pack, glad to be rid of it, and rubbed gingerly at her shoulders and raw collar bones.

"Must have been a tough trip," from her company. The guard's lips twisted just oddly enough to be somewhat off-putting compared to a normal smile.

It put Sakura on the defensive.

"Not really," she proclaimed, stilling her massage to stare at the boy. It was while she was considering him so closely that she realised he was familiar; it occurred to her that she'd seen this same person earlier, when she had first arrived. Sakura gasped, instantly scandalised. With some effort, she managed to keep calm enough to ask the guard for his name.

"It's Deidara, yeah," he supplied, his fully self-satisfied sneering smile re-emerging.

"You're the one who dumped that stupid bucket of water on me!" Sakura declared, sitting forward to point at him, as if he might mistake her for speaking to someone else in the otherwise empty room.

Deidara shrugged, apparently entirely without remorse.

"You looked like you needed some watering, Sprout," he offered.

Wanting to share a less than friendly gesture, then thinking better of it, Sakura snorted and turned away from him to frown out the window. The sun was already starting to set and she wondered how much longer she would have to wait for her new team leader to appear. Looking for a distraction, she decided to search through her storage scrolls for a book to read.

"Whatcha doin', yeah?" Deidara asked, affecting his voice to be more childlike, intending to bother her.

Sakura continued going through her things, trying to keep everything in order while she located her stored literature.

"I'm going to find something to read so that I can better ignore you," she replied, attempting to shame him into silence.

The intended effect was nil. Deidara perked up at her answer. "Oh, so you're the scholarly type then. A bookworm or something?"

She sniffed, pretending to be very busy with the bag she was looking through. "I wasn't top of my class in school because of my high tolerance for pestering and idle fools."

"Maybe for that wit, yeah," he easily volleyed back. "But I guess that's something to work with, yeah. You're not so terrible, Sprout."

The scroll in her hand crinkled a bit as her grip tightened. Sakura frowned at the boy across the room. "It's Sakura. Haruno Sakura. You can call me Haruno-san."

He laughed outright. "Sure! And call me  _Deidara-sama,_  yeah."

"I won't be calling you anything,  _yeah_ , because from this point on, I'll be ignoring you." She swivelled as much as she could in her seat to face away from the blond-haired nuisance. She finally found a book to read,  _Clash of Clans, Identity Politics and the Making of Konohagakure,_  and set about not paying attention to the man –  _boy –_  standing guard a few paces from her.

Except he was awfully terrible at being innocuous. Deidara was constantly fidgeting, and tapping his fingers, spinning a kunai, or sighing dejectedly. After the fourth such lonesome and suspiciously long exhalation, Sakura clapped her book shut and  _kindly_  inquired as to just what the heck his problem was.

Deidara blinked at her, as if surprised to find Sakura was still in the room. He looked away to gaze forlornly out the window. He said, sad composure exaggerated, "oh, nothing..."

She rolled her eyes, not intrigued.

"I'm just disappointed," he continued as soon as Sakura had resumed reading. "I could be outside right now, enjoying life, yeah, and instead I'm cooped up here. With you."

"Sorry for being such dreadful company," she mumbled, laying her sarcasm nice and thick.

"I'm sure this won't be the worst of it," Deidara said, though she didn't quite grasp his meaning. The pause stretched into a length of silence, each of them trying not to think of the other, but both nonetheless hyper aware of their company.

After what seemed like hours, and what had been about half an hour in reality, the office door to Deidara's side opened.

A short, barrel-chested man slammed out, his mouth bobbing from under his reddened nose and white moustache. It was the Tsuchikage, talking with someone who looked like an advisor, being trailed by several ANBU. His hands were animated as he talked, pointing from person to person. "And make sure that border is as tight as this runts legs are loose!"

" _Tsuchikage-sama.._ I've already explained she is my betrothed _._ " The apparent runt whined from behind his porcelain mask. "...she's very demanding..."

Sakura had abandoned her reading to stare blankly at the sudden entrance. Belatedly, she mumbled a greeting. "Ah...sir?"

Everyone's attention honed in on her insignificant presence. The Tsuchikage raised an eyebrow at her, his lips down-turned.

"The Leaf kunoichi?" he asked. The people following him all stared at her, just as baffled.

Sakura felt foolish, though she couldn't say why. She had followed orders and waited here and now the man was surprised to see her?

"Um, yes, Tsuchikage. I was informed that I would be introduced to my sensei here..." she said, but trailed off as Deidara disguised a laugh with a very unconvincing cough.

The old man startled and turned his head to glare at the boy. He then looked at Sakura as if he couldn't exactly figure her out. He sucked his teeth."Meet your sensei? Hasn't he been right here the entire time?"

The room was still empty if not counting the newly entered entourage and Tsuchikage. Sakura glanced around, wondering if her sensei was hidden somewhere, as Yuuji had done in the desert. And then, while Sakura was considering the possibility of a person popping up out of the floor, or perhaps her seat cushion, it dawned on her.

Sakura glared accusingly at her blond antagonist.

" _You?_ " She demanded of Deidara.

He gave her another cheeky grin and then a mock salute. "Deidara-sensei, at your service, Sprout."

o o o


	2. Go, Go, Go

o o o

_Stranded on the ocean, drowning there at best, so I came unto your desert_

o o o

 

With the order to "take the little seedling and plant her elsewhere," Sakura and her new sensei had been promptly booted out of the Tsuchikage Tower after their rather short introduction.

"So, I guess you'll want something to eat and then to go to sleep," Deidara said, rubbing absently at the back of his neck.

Sakura, who was standing a few steps behind him outside the building, tossed her book at the back of his head. "Don't just say that so casually! All we got to was, 'Deidara-sensei, at your service, Sprout,' and then we were kicked outside!"

Her new sensei, whom she had thought was only an annoying but ultimately temporary thorn in her new mission, met her aggression with an unimpressed look. "We'll have to work on your basic strength first, I guess."

"So you're not a guard at all? How old are you? Does the Tsuchikage even like you? Are you a jounin? How old are you, again?"

With each question, Deidara's expression soured. His frown was exaggerated and his blue eyes very big. "Stop asking me things so quickly!"

She closed her mouth, as she'd opened it for another rapid-fire round, and gave him an expectant look.

Deidara sighed and drew a hand down his face, obviously suffering terribly. "No. Fifteen. Of course, who doesn't? Yes, definitely. And again, I'm fifteen, yeah."

"You're three years older than me." Sakura hopped down the last few steps to catch up to Deidara, and thus discovered, to her worsening dismay, that her jounin "teacher" was only a smidgeon taller than her. He _was_ young. "When were you promoted? Have you taught any students before? Do I have team mates?"

The hand previously pulling at his eyes was suddenly pressed over Sakura's lips, preventing her from speaking. "Okay, I get that you're curious, yeah. But can't you at least spread these questions throughout the night?"

Supposing that she was being a bit demanding to someone who was meant to be in some sort of superior position, Sakura nodded her head. The hand was quickly withdrawn.

"Right. We've got a bit of a walk, yeah, so I'll just talk as we go."

"How far?" The question was purely reflexive, but Sakura smiled apologetically at Deidara's exhausted grimace any way. "Whenever you're ready, then."

Apparently unsure if he was willing to trust her yet, Deidara gave her one last wary appraisal. Finally he took off down one of the many streets that ran to and from the tower. He slipped into guide-mode seamlessly.

"Where to start? That ramen stand there looks good, but really it's crap. The best place for underground Shougi is down that alley, third stoop, Fukuji's place. Hmm, don't buy anything from this corner shop, the guy's a crook and the woman at the register bullies you. The weapons  _here_  are all second hand, so you have to be careful when buying something. I think I bought a cursed kunai set there and I swear the spirit still haunts the boiler room. I like the dango at Matsui's, down that street –she has her own recipe for the sauce. It's pretty good. This is one of the nicer bath houses."

Sakura followed where Deidara pointed, trying to decide whether any of the information he was giving her was actually useful. Everything he pointed out seemed somewhat irrelevant, and a lot of it had to do with food. She sighed when he mentioned the third "terrible" ramen shop. She didn't even like ramen.

Her sensei caught the noise, though she hadn't really meant to be ostentatious. "All right, all right. So tell me bookworm, how much do  _you_ know about Iwagakure?"

"Nothing about restaurants, but I have learned a fair amount from the books I've read."

"The ones your Leaf superiors assigned?" He teased, doubting her objectivity.

Sakura sneered, a little smug. "No, from the ones I've independently decided to read, thank you very much. I don't just think what people tell me to."

If there was one thing Sakura liked, it was dashing preconceptions others had about her intelligence and knowledge.

Since Deidara was foreign, and from a previously hostile country no less, she wasn't surprised by his scepticism, but she was  _so_  going to enjoy beating it down. As they walked, she listed the clan names that had formed Iwagakure in its infancy, the name of the first Earth Daimyou, the contracts and treaties the two bodies had agreed upon, the social and economical situations that stipulated those agreements. Battles and incidents that helped bolster Iwagakure's strength and reputation.

And she had plenty more to share except her sensei covered his ears and moaned at her to stop. "Okay, okay, I don't care!  _Shit_ , I get it, yeah, you know some stuff. So pretentious."

"Not pretentious. You asked and I just happened to be informed." Okay, so she had been showing off a little. Sakura smiled at his pout as he kicked at a loose rock in the road.

"I didn't even know copies of Tetsuhaza's texts existed outside of Earth Country..." he remarked, going back to sources she had referenced while talking.

Sakura had actually never considered how her father had acquired it. "It's pretty rare, I guess."

There was a pause and they both walked silently. Then, "you're a strange kid, Haruno."

"Yeah, I've been told..."

After that, they went back to Deidara pointing out things about his home town and giving advice on food, and Sakura discovered that Iwagakure was a very uneven city. Geographically, in particular. There were a lot of steep dips and climbs, unlike Konoha, which was mostly flat.

"So anyhow, yeah, I live past the city limits. Privacy, you know?" Deidara announced, interrupting his own narration. "We're getting sort of close now."

Sakura didn't follow him, because out of nowhere the stone blocks and narrow streets had given way to a cliff, dropping off into a forest. It had been building crammed against building for the past hour of walking, then down one alley –  _BAM_  – forest canopy. Sakura looked to her left and right, seeing that the tree line extended a great distance in each direction.

Then she realised what she was looking at. "This is the First Hokage's Mokuton jutsu, a gift he offered Iwagakure at its founding. This takes up the city's entire northern front!"

Deidara smirked, looking out into the dense treetops at their eye level. "The very same, yeah. And those mountains," he nodded to the peaks in the distance, "are where we're heading."

"You live all the way out there?" Sakura repeated, groaning internally for the sake of her sore calf muscles.

The blond grinned down at her. "I practice some...hazardous jutsu, so I need the buffer from vital locations, yeah. Besides, this way we'll be able to train there without too many people hassling us."

At that moment Sakura knew why Deidara was her sensei; the Tsuchikage had placed her with him with the sole intention of keeping her as far away from Iwagakure's shinobi operations as possible. Tricky man, she thought. How very ninja-like of him. "So I guess this means I don't have any team mates?"

"Nope. Lucky, right? Exciting, yeah?" Deidara goaded.

Sakura pretended not to hear her sensei, whistling as she looked anywhere but at him.

"Ehn, fine, fine. Be that way," he dismissed her, tagging something suspiciously like ' _leaf brat'_  under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear.

Secretly, she smiled, liking that he understood when she was teasing him and that he was easy going enough to play along.

He perked up. "Last one to the house makes dinner, yeah!"

Sakura gave him an exasperated look, about to explain how unfair that was considering his familiarity with the area –only to find that he was gone.

"Sakura-chan's going to  _loo-oose_!" Deidara called back from where he was already hopping down over the side of the rock face.

"Cheater!" she yelled, quickly starting off after him.

"Nope!  _Shinobi,_ " he corrected.

Descending a cliff was a challenge, even for an academy graduate. After a couple of minutes, Sakura heard Deidara's voice from the forest floor below. "Come on, Sprout! Tell me you're faster than that, yeah!"

Sakura groaned as she dropped onto a little ledge and saw that she'd only made barely any progress, with three-quarters left to go. There was a  _pom_  of smoke at her side as Deidara appeared on the ledge with a shunshin jutsu.

"First lesson, Sakura-chan," he said, bringing his hands in front of his chest to make a hand seal. "If you concentrate chakra to your feet, you can use it as a means of sticking onto surfaces against the pull of gravity. See?"

He demonstrated this by walking up the rocks until his head was perpendicular to her own.

"Your turn. And don't worry, yeah, I'll wait 'til you've got it. I understand that you're a Leaf and this could take a while."

Sakura rolled her eyes at the jab, but then closed them nonetheless, trying to envision her chakra pathways. The image was clear in her mind, and she felt the energy circulating her body in kind. She instructed it, as if it could hear her internal monologue, to go to her feet. She felt it moving and willed it to move as she wanted. There was a satisfying, silent hum along the bottom of each foot almost immediately. Sakura withheld a gasp as her stance became almost suction-like on the stone.

A thought came to mind as soon as she assured herself she had perfect control of the technique; she plastered an excited, almost silly smile onto her face. "I think I have it Deidara-sensei! Look!"

Sakura stepped over to the edge – making as if to walk over it, when she lost her hold and started to fall. She shrieked, twisting in mid air to stare, shocked, for a split second at Deidara's paling face before he was out of sight.

Careful to keep her toes attached to the rock's surface, she allowed her body to fall and continued the motion into a backwards handstand, until her hands had cemented onto the underside of the ledge and her legs had fallen under her again.

"Shit! Sakura–"

She had just barely managed to sneak her entire body under the ledge when Sakura saw Deidara's blurry form stream by.

"Made you jump!" She yelled after him, laughing.

Deidara had the grace to twist around to look at her as he fell, panic replaced by his middle finger and the words "fuckin'  _Leaf_ " floating up to her.

With the skill of a high-level ninja, he summoned a rock arm out of the cliff with a douton jutsu and landed on it nimbly.

Confident with her new ability, Sakura caught up to him easily, running and jumping as she descended.

"First lesson!" She mimicked as she cartwheeled into a stop at his side, "never doubt a Leaf Kunoichi!"

For a few seconds, all her sensei did was frown, making her feel a bit guilty about the prank.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Deidara said, though the person in front of her didn't move, still perpetually and stiffly frowning. "You can sit there all night talking to that dummy if you'd like, yeah, but a  _real_  kunoichi would be following me!"

Sakura whipped her head around to see a waving Deidara standing in the woods. She hadn't noticed him use a technique to sneak off.

"Catch me if you can!" He barked before turning and leaping to another tree. His form bounced between the ground, roots, and trunks as he steadily moved away.

"That's not fair!"

It was dark by the time their game of chase had ended, and Sakura was shaking from exertion when she came to a stop just a few paces behind her still completely energized teacher. He had teased her the entire journey, always lingering just out of reach and egging her on with insults.

"Hey there, Sprout. Grow any roots while I left you in the dust?"

Sakura had the dignity to stick her tongue out at him between gasps of air.

He ignored it, instead focusing on something ahead of them. They had slowly but surely been increasing in elevation again as they had gone through the forest, and finally come to the base of a mountain. Several hundred feet above their heads she could see lights glowing and the shadow of a large building constructed into the rocks.

"That looks like a temple," Sakura said, squinting and hoping to discern more details.

Deidara smirked at her, clearly proud. "Not exactly, yeah. It's my studio. Slash home."

"That's wonderful, but why does it have to be so far away..." She was at the point where her body was overtaxed and cooling rapidly with the sudden lack of motion.

With the aid of evening shadows, Sakura couldn't be certain if his smile really did falter before Deidara schooled his expression. "Ha! Looks like we have a lot of work to do, yeah.  _Shinobi_. They must hand those hitai-ate out like candy in your village."

Sakura rubbed at the metal plate holding back her hair. "That's not true..."

Deidara watched her quietly for a moment, his teasing sneer loosening. He pat her shoulder then, in something of a reassuring fashion.

"I know, Sprout," he said, almost gently.

Sakura blamed the resulting flush of her cheeks on the recent run. She wasn't blushing from the unexpected, supportive gesture.

Deidara, despite her non-blush, quickly snatched his arm back to his side, pivoting awkwardly to walk up steps carved into the ground. He talked while he moved away, mechanically motioning for her to follow. "Still have to get you something to eat, yeah."

She felt the corners of her mouth pull upwards as she followed after him.

From the base of the mountain, the structure had looked imposing. Up close it was simply amazing. The style was unlike anything she had seen in Konoha, constructed out of slabs of stone, some of the blocks nearly as tall as she. It was huge and labyrinthine in the way it seemed to coil around the slope and crags. Every few metres along the top of the wall, there were steadily burning torches and strings of small flags waving in the breeze.

"It's like a castle," she murmured, impressed. "Do Iwa knights live here or something? Samurai?"

Deidara snorted . "We're not in Iron Country, yeah. This used to be a fort though, sure. Back before the ninja clans had settled here. 'Course you must have read about that?"

He winked.

Sakura frowned at his little spur.

"You mentioned something about dinner?" She asked, purposefully redirecting the conversation.

A meal, as she had guessed, was a topic Deidara was all to happy to pursue. He went on about proper nutrition and how it correlated to muscle development and brain function. Sakura was half listening to her sensei and otherwise caught up in looking around at her new "home." After leading her inside the coiling fortress, through a wrought iron gate and then a second wooden set of doors, Deidara cut across the interior courtyard to another building.

Sakura followed him, carefully picking her way between flowers, bushes, potholes, and statues.

"Quite an interesting place," she commented when at her sensei's side again.

He grinned. "That's nothing, yeah. Bet you haven't got anything like this in your village."

Her shoulders rose as she shrugged. "The Hyuuga compound, I guess. Maybe Sasuke's place. That part of the city is pretty traditional. Pretty big, too, I think."

Deidara's eyebrows had wriggled at Sasuke's name, however, and Sakura got the impression he had stopped listening to what she was saying. "Eh? Who's that, yeah? Is this  _Sakura_ - _chan's_  boyfriend?"

She didn't deny the blush that lit across her cheeks. Chiding, "don't be prying."

"Don't be so obvious," Deidara responded, the playful tone reappearing. "I bet it must be hard, travelling all the way to Iwa without your boy."

They had entered another building, this one sporting a more traditional architecture and design. It was old-fashioned, with wooden floors and screened walls. It served as a nice tactic in steering the conversation anew.

"Your home has two different personalities," Sakura observed, poking her head into what looked like a training room.

"Ah...ha..." Deidara rubbed at his neck. "I had to do some...remodelling, yeah, so I rebuilt it to my taste."

Admittedly, it was sort of pleasing to the eye.

"Why did you come to Iwa, Haruno?" He asked her as he directed Sakura to a kitchen.

Her bag fell from her shoulders onto a chair as she rolled her stiff muscles. "Because it seemed interesting."

A sly smile spread across Deidara's face. "Wanted to impress someone, yeah?"

The truth was, Sakura had no one to impress. She didn't have a  _boy_. She might not even have a friend, she realized.

When she didn't answer, he laughed but it was light and not unkind. He picked up an egg out of the basket on his counter and made it dance from his shoulder down his elbow, where he tapped it into the air only to catch it after a spin. His eyebrows wiggled until she clapped and 'ooued' for the show.

"Now,  _that's_ impressive, eh, Haruno? Right, right?"

Despite wanting to be upset as he started prepping their meal, she found his mood somehow contagious.

After he had treated her to steamed meat, vegetables and some sort of spicy sauce served over rice, Deidara showed her more of the complex, and finally, to her room. It was rectangular and simply accommodated; it had a set of drawers, a changing screen, a futon, some ornamentation, and oil lamps.

"This is perfect, so much perfection," Sakura breathed, delirious with the promise of sleep. Deidara had wandered down the hall for the moment, and she took the time to slip her shoes off and poke at her blisters. She was nearly purring with the lack of confinement. A cough from the doorway alerted her to Deidara's return. She startled, about to tell him off for spying, when he tossed a towel at her face.

"Wash room's to the right. The bath water is hot." He sounded amused at her less than elegant state.

She stuck her tongue out at him, pulling at her eye for good measure.

"Nice look, yeah," Deidara waved her off, leaving her alone again.

But a soak did sound nice...

Much later, Sakura fell onto her futon, grateful for its feathery goodness, and inhaled deeply. It smelled fresh and she had a mental image of Deidara airing it out the day before, cleaning the dust off with a broom as his long hair flopped from side to side with his movements. A laugh escaped her at the vivid picture.

"What is it, yeah?" Deidara asked, making her jump.

Her futon was positioned near the shouji screen wall, and she was immediately concerned if it were actually some sort of door, on the other side of which, Deidara was a few feet away. If they both reached out, their fingers would meet on either side of the thin barrier.

"Ah, nothing," Sakura said quickly, burying herself in her covers. For a few minutes, she stared idly at the moving shadow in front of her as Deidara crossed the room back and forth. It took a couple seconds for her to realise he had started undressing at some point. She cursed inaudibly and ducked her head under the blanket embarrassedly. She grouched to herself about backlight.

When it had become distinctly uncomfortable to breathe the hot air under her futon, she re-emerged with a stifled huff. A hasty sideways glance proved that her sensei had finally settled down for the night, a book of some sort propped open on his chest.

"Are you still awake?" Sakura asked, playing dumb about being able to see him. Deidara "hmm"ed in what she guessed was a confirmation.

They had skipped talk during dinner, but suddenly Sakura found that she was curious about her new teacher. "When were you promoted?"

The silhouette sighed and placed the book aside. "Back to the questions, yeah... To jounin, then?"

She shrugged, though he couldn't see it. "Sure, I guess. All of it, maybe? When did you leave the academy?"

"I never went. I started developing my own jutsu by the time I was six, yeah. When the Tsuchikage found that out, he placed me with a private tutor until I was a chuunin. Probably took about a year..."

Sakura felt how her mouth was open, amazed, and snapped it shut. "Six? Why were doing that sort of thing at  _six_? Did your parents teach you?"

There was an undignified snort. "I told you I developed them myself, yeah? I never knew my parents. But I like art, always have. I used chakra because it helped me express myself better and that kind of became my style. And I guess it helped in fights too, yeah."

He snickered, gleefully reminiscing, before continuing. "So now most of my work has to do with sabotage and shi– stuff."

When friends with someone like Ino and fond of someone like Sasuke, Sakura had always found her non-existent ninja background to be a huge disadvantage. But hearing about Deidara was possibly the most frustrating thing ever. In that moment, she was incredibly angry with her own lack of ambition and resourcefulness. Her attitude dipped again, as it had before their meal, and she thought how she was so...inadequate.

Her sensei was perceptive of her sharp dive in mood. "You okay, Sprout?"

"I'm fine," she said, maybe a bit too fast, peeking again at her sensei's shadow. In a way, Deidara reminded her of Naruto. She had never considered such an obnoxious attitude to be enviable, but it was easy to tell that the jounin on the other side of the divide was a person who had prospered in the wake of adversity. Without proper training, he had learned combat skills from necessity and was now clearly successful for it.

Sakura had chosen the scholarly route of improving herself because she had never felt pressured to be a fighter. She had become a shinobi because...

"What about you, yeah?" Deidara's vaguely interested voice cut through her train of thought.

"What do you mean by that?"

There was a hum from behind the screen. "You know, what are your parents like and all. Why you became a kunoichi... that kind of stuff, yeah."

Sakura hesitated a bit. Saying that she had entered the ninja academy to follow after her crush seemed ridiculous in comparison to Deidara's story.

"To serve my village," she offered instead.

His answer was another bark of laughter. "There it is! There's the textbook answer your teachers fed you, yeah!"

 _Ah, shoot_. There went sounding objective and independent.

"Okay, okay..." Thinking quickly, Sakura said, "I used to be teased a lot when I was younger. I was lonely. I guess...I wanted to go to the academy in order to get stronger..."

She grimaced, she sounded like  _such a – a_  –

A moment passed before a reply came. Deidara was contemplative for a beat. "That's not so bad a reason..."

Which he ruined with the following. "...but I don't want to know what you were like before if this is the 'stronger you,' yeah."

He laughed at his own joke and Sakura rolled her eyes; she probably should have expected that.

"So, what were you teased about? Your hair? Your poor choice in wardrobe? How you like to interject people talking with, ' _actually!_ '"

"Hardly! My hair is  _lovely_ , thank you very much. And my clothes are cute." She copied Deidara's pout. It was difficult to admit normally, but Sakura found herself speaking openly with the shadow on her wall. "People didn't like my face. _"_

She closed her eyes, waiting for her teacher's jibe.

"Your face," she heard repeated back to her, toneless.

"My forehead. I have this stupidly large forehead, okay? It's always been too big for the rest of my face and people already liked to call me an egghead and the forehead did _not_ help."

"That's it? Seriously? Kids teased you for that? And you believed them?"

The rooms were quiet again. Sakura was taken aback; she had never considered not believing those who had teased her. Not until Ino had told her otherwise. Even then she had still just accepted the truth that she had a particularly displeasing, completely disproportionate face. "I...of course I did. ...It was really isolating."

"I thought you said you ' _don't allow people to tell you what to think?'_ " Deidara asked, and she could hear the frown in his voice.

"Well, yeah, _I know_ – but that's hard to do when  _everyone_  around you is telling you something over and over again."

Deidara scoffed. "Doesn't make it true, yeah. Your forehead works with your face. It's not like you're terribly asymmetrical or something. Those other kids were probably jealous."

For some unnamed reason, Sakura felt her chest swell and her toes curl, kind of like she was giddy. She turned her head a little to look at the screen separating them and the feeling increased. This was the first time anyone other than her best friend turned love rival had ever complimented her. "Do you really think that?"

There was the tiniest hesitation before he answered, and Sakura worried that he was rethinking what he had just told her. "I guess you're all right. I'm saying this strictly as an artist, yeah."

"So do you think there's a chance he likes me?" She pushed, knowing that a boy's was a very trustworthy opinion.

"What? That boyfriend kid again?" Dismay in the question. A moment passed and Deidara coughed. "I don't know...how's he acted around you?"

And then she heard something like skin clapping skin, not knowing that on the other side of the divide, her new sensei had just slapped a hand against his forehead.

"I've tried talking to him... He's never really said much of anything to me," Sakura confessed, feeling gloomier upon that realisation. "He never responds to me."

There was a very no-nonsense edge to Deidara's voice in his answer. "Look, Haruno, what he thinks doesn't even matter. You're just who you are. Can't do anything about that. Be happy that you're actually smart and you know, symmetrical looking and all that. You've got...stuff going for you, yeah."

Sakura liked Sasuke, and had for a long time, but hearing someone stick up for her was kind of nice. The last person to do as much had been Ino, but being that Sasuke had been the wedge in their relationship, Ino had never come to Sakura's rescue when the boy was particularly cold to her. She supposed she had only herself to thank for that.

"Anyway," Deidara offered, "kid sounds like a dick."

"You don't know him."

"Being dismissive like that – he's arrogant, you know?"

"That's not – Sasuke is –"

Deidara yawned again, not allowing her to finish. "New rule. No more talking about your Konoha classmates, yeah."

Sakura huffed loudly and rolled over in her mattress. She wanted to tell him that Sasuke was cold because he had been hurt somehow – that was all. He was an exceptionally lonely kid, working to prove something, she thought. He was too insecure about something to be sensitive towards anyone.

But perhaps Deidara wouldn't understand that presentation any way; when he'd been alone and vulnerable, Deidara had become extroverted as opposed to introverted. He couldn't relate to how Sasuke had decided to deal with his own, totally mysterious but she was certain similar, circumstances.

"Now goodnight, Sprout," Deidara said, unaware of her thoughts, and once again carefree and confident. "Get some rest. You'll need it, yeah."

Her eyebrows drew together. Just when Sakura began to like Deidara, he went and spoiled things. She had no idea what to make of the man –  _boy_.

...Except that he was certainly one to offer a fresh view of things.

Did she like that about him or not?

She turned over in her futon once more, trying to quiet her musings. "Goodnight."

o o o

A considerate sensei attentive to her needs, Sakura had.

Deidara let Sakura sleep in the next morning, waking her up at oh-six-hundred hours as opposed to oh-five-hundred. His method was quite effective: a splash of cold water poured over her head.

Sakura bolted up right, her heart beating into her throat and her muscles protesting in confused spasms. She stuttered, stuck on freeze when she should have been on flight or fight. "What – what's going on?"

Her dizzily frantic eyes landed on her sensei. He had a sly smile gracing his face even while holding the damned evidence of a bucket in his hands – which he promptly tossed at her.

"Who does this any more?" She grouched while reflexively catching the bucket. "And you do it so much..."

"No time for complaints, Sprout. You needed some watering, yeah, it's morning! Wash up, get dressed, and put your futon out on the line to dry."

"Right, right," Sakura grumbled while moving to discreetly rifle through her new drawers for an outfit.

"Wear something that's loose fitting, yeah. It'll keep you cooler," Deidara advised, peeking over her shoulder, not at all concerned with her attempt at privacy. "A binder, seriously? Aren't we a bit optimistic?"

"Get out!" Sakura tossed said binder after her sensei as he ducked out of the room. "Absolute wart! _Toad!_ "

"Meal in ten!" He called back, speaking around what must have been silent mirth.

When Sakura walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, fresh and ready for the day, she saw that her sensei was nowhere around. At the table in the adjoining dining area there were two seats already set, and she had just made to take one when Deidara's call halted her. She turned to see his head poking through a window above the sink.

"Hey, Sprout, out here!" Why he hadn't just opened the glass door leading to the courtyard to speak with her, Sakura couldn't fathom. Deidara continued, "come out to the garden, yeah. I've got something to show you, yeah."

Seconds later found Sakura staring at two tree stumps positioned next to each other, a metre apart, with her sensei standing between them.

"Fascinating," she chirped.

Deidara gave her a flat look. "They're for training, yeah."

Was she supposed to chop them in half or something?

"It's simple. You stand between the logs, jump first up to this one," – Deidara hopped to the side, landing on the shorter piece of wood to his left – "then back to the ground. And then you hop onto the taller one, and back to the ground. That's one repetition."

Sakura followed Deidara's swift and clean movements as he went through the rep once more. She could see that it took a lot of strength and agility to perform the exercises so precisely.

"Easy, yeah," her sensei said, cheerfully demonstrating for a third time (just to show off, in her opinion). "Do fifty of these every morning before you eat."

" _Fifty_?" She echoed, face scrunching with dread. Maybe ten or twenty, sure, but fifty would just get boring.

"Don't worry, yeah. That's only for the first week."

"Oh thank –"

"Next week it will be one hundred, then one fifty, and we'll cap it at two hundred."

"That'll take hours!" Sakura protested, feeling a bit ill already from the expected effort.

Deidara grinned. "You'll get the hang of it, yeah. Besides, it's good for the heart. I'll do mine with you – you'll see how quickly they go."

It did sound a bit better when he said he was going to be torturing himself right alongside her. So she acquiesced, stepping up to her own set of tree stumps while Deidara moved over to his (which were noticeably higher from the ground). For the first twenty, he took it slow, coaching Sakura through the motions and setting a reasonable pace. Then he promptly left her in the dust, figuratively, and finished his quadrupled set before she was done.

"You're," she gasped, bending double, "a pain."

Deidara winked in a far too perky fashion and she scowled.

"Ready for breakfast, then?"

Sakura didn't think her stomach was in any shape for food, nor were her muscles quite so keen to move yet. All she wanted to do was curl in on herself for a good minute or two. Ten, maybe. Bed sounded nice, actually.

Deidara might have guessed as much from her crumpled posture, and suggested, in a dubiously gleeful manner, that she stretch her muscles out right after waking up next time. It was a good habit, he said.

Dryly, she replied, "you could have mentioned that earlier."

He shrugged his shoulders. Answered evenly, "hey. I'm learning too, yeah."

Sakura paused at that, realising that she hadn't even questioned Deidara's authority that morning. Had she so easily forgotten his age and relative inexperience in only one night? He was still just a kid, after all. A creative and boisterous kid, perhaps, but still some crabby teenager nonetheless.  _He was still learning_...

"Here you go," said crabby teenager tossed Sakura the towel he had used to wipe his brow. She picked it from the air with two fingers and wondered if his freshly washed shirt from the drying line might work better. Unaware of her thoughts, Deidara entered the house with, once again, too much enthusiasm. "Time for a nutritional breakfast!"

Breakfast was some sort of floury flakes served in hot water with dried fruits – and was surprisingly delicious, Sakura decided as she finished her meal. She said as much as she joined her teacher at the basin for clean up, leaning against the sink as he scrubbed at stubborn food.

"It's true, yeah. My talents as a chef are complimentary to my passion as an artist," Deidara quipped, not very serious at all.

Like any orphan, Deidara had probably been cooking for himself for a very long time. A lot of practice and lonely dinner talk. Sakura stopped studying his profile and turned away to frown at her unwarranted, rather too dramatic, observation.

"What's the schedule for today?" she asked, more to distract herself.

"The norm. Kunai and shuriken target practice, katas, hiking out to a giant pit in the desert."

"...I should have expected something like that."

o o o

It was not a figure of speech, Sakura was disappointed to learn three hours later. They had walked  _forever_  and stopped only once they stood at the edge of what was simply a really big hole. Twice the size of her bedroom, nearly twice as deep, and filled with rocks.

Sakura stood next to her sensei, the two of them swallowed in layered cloaks similar to the one the other Stone kunoichi, Meiko, had worn. Deidara had explained to Sakura that it was good to wear the swathes of light cloth in the desert – it protected the skin from sun damage and the air flow between layers kept the body cooler.

Deidara didn't have any knowledge of sunblock, it seemed.

"We'll be working here every day until I think you're ready to move on, yeah. And you might want to take your cloak off now. It's not going to help when you're training."

"It's like a  _thousand_  degrees out here," Sakura pointed out, waving her arms unnecessarily at the sun, as if her sensei might have missed it.

"Well, if you're a wind type – summon a breeze to keep you cool. Otherwise, I can't help you, yeah."

Sakura bristled. "That's just ridiculous! I only just left my academy, I don't even know my affinity! Let alone any jutsu based on it."

"Ah," her sensei looked sincerely confused. Then he sneered, clearly feeling superior. "What  _do_  they teach you in Leaf, yeah? How to properly shape trees? Gardening?"

A memory of all the academy students attending a lecture on floral arrangement popped into her head, and Sakura quickly schooled her face. "Of course not," she lied, all the while feeling distinctly sour. "We just learned about other ninja stuff. Because I was at a ninja academy." And just to clarify, "for serious ninja."

Deidara raised an eyebrow and pretended to attempt to cover his laughter. " _For_ serious _ninja? Ha!_  You did, yeah, didn't you? Learn about planting pretty flowers?"

"How are you laughing at my academy? It's not like you went to yours!"

It sounded, and was probably meant to be, meaner than how Deidara heard her comment, but he just continued basking in his joyous smugness. "Because I was a  _genius_ , Genius." More chuckles, and then, on a stumbling breath of laughter, " _gardening..._ "

" _Actually_ , they were flowers for  _espionage_!" Sakura defended, cheeks hot – because of the sun, of course. "Any way, can you get on with explaining what I'm supposed to be doing here?"

Not waiting for his persistent snickers to fade completely, Deidara went over her task for the day. Very involved, very complex, very lengthy. He said, "this right here is 'The Pit.' See it? Empty it."

That was all.

Before Sakura could stop him, her sensei turned and fazed out of sight. He reappeared atop a nearby stone formation and waved to her cheerfully, looking quite a bit smaller in the distance. "I'll be right here if you need me, yeah!"

A spot below her hairline twitched as Sakura dutifully returned the gesture with a limp wave of her own. "Right. Okay." She peered down into The Pit, less than excited about the boulders of varying sizes filling it. "This will be fun."

Sakura worked strategically at first, moving the smaller stones and studiously ignoring the ones that looked to weigh half as much as she did. Unfortunately, with only one arm to help her climb out of The Pit, even the little rocks proved troublesome. She had barely made a dozen trips down and up before she dropped to a knee for a break, sweating and gasping.

Furtively, bringing a hand to wipe the sweat from her face, Sakura scrutinized her teacher. Deidara was still atop his stone pillar, sitting with his legs folded in front of him, a pile of papers and books visible in his lap. He went from scribbling in the texts to staring at his palms then back to reading and scribbling. She pouted, wondering why he spent his time sketching his hand while she pointlessly laboured away.

As she thought this, with her disgruntlement still marring her face, Deidara looked up from his notes to stare directly at her. He pouted similarly. "Hey! Get back to work, yeah!"

"It's too hard!" she whined.

"Just use your head!"

Sakura stuck her tongue out and then dived back into the pit when Deidara retaliated with a kunai. "Lousy artist!"

On the rocks again, Sakura picked one up and turned it over several times – trying to figure out which side would lay most comfortably against her skull. She'd seen the technique before, when a person balanced something atop their head while they walked. That was a thing, right? She carefully brought it to her head for about two seconds before deciding it was a terrible idea. " _Ow_ -uh..."

"Not what he meant," she said to herself, after having paused and waited on account of some paranoia for Deidara's laughter at her tactic. Back to the drawing board.

Falling into a cross-legged seat, Sakura glanced around at the pile of rocks and considered another course of action.  _Empty the rocks._  That was all she had to do – but carrying out the rocks one at a time as she had been doing would take months. Was he really expecting her to do that?

Well, she could not say he would be one entirely opposed to the idea.

She massaged her muscles for a few minutes until she had decided on a new strategy. Peeking her head over the ledge of The Pit, Sakura very discreetly reached for her discarded robe, and then went about fastening it into a sort of sling that hung down her back. The effort paid off in that she now had two available hands for climbing, and the work went faster, but as the sun travelled steadily across the sky, she still failed to see any apparent progress of emptying The Pit. There was a simple, rather unimpressive pile of stones now just a few feet from its ledge and that was it.

Upon dropping down her thirty fourth stone, Deidara appeared by her side with a canteen and some other unknown little container. "Drink."

Sakura did so eagerly, not even bothering to wipe at the perspiration on her face or straighten her hair beforehand. How she might have looked did not even cross her mind. "Thanks," she said quickly between long, slow swigs.

"Here, take this off," Deidara helped Sakura shrug the sling from her shoulders. "Nice try, by the way," he noted of it, though she could not say he was exactly thrilled about her device. But he didn't let her squawk in its defence, because, just as she prepared a retort, he ran his hands over her shoulders.

There was something cool and pleasantly tingling that he was smoothing into her skin, and she immediately guessed it to be from the other jar Deidara had been carrying.

"It'll help with the sun damage," he said without her having to ask.

She attempted to say "oh" in understanding, but couldn't summon the energy for it. The feeling of his callused hands covered in lotion was  _interesting_  in some unexplainable way – so in lieu, she hummed her approval at his continued attention.

All too soon he was done and scooping out more for Sakura to use herself. "Get your face," her sensei instructed and she tried not to look too objectionable. And then, "I'll get your calves."

The trek back to Deidara's studio was not half as terrible afterwards. Still sore, Sakura admitted, but manageable.

"And what did you think of the training, yeah?" Deidara finally got around to asking.

"What was there to think of it, other than you must be trying to kill me while making it look like an accident?"

He snorted at her purposefully flat response. "Not getting it yet, huh, Sprout?"

"Moving rocks around? No. Not really." Perhaps it was just entertainment for him? Laughing at her as she toiled away for weeks, carrying out a menial task while slowly succumbing to dehydration and heat stroke?

Deidara smiled in a satisfied, smug manner and didn't comment further.

Yes, definitely for his maniacal enjoyment, she decided.

The next few days were interchangeable in their progression. Hike to The Pit, carry rocks, bed, repeat. Her one great breakthrough had been on day two when she remembered to apply chakra to her feet to help her climb, but that excitement had dulled rather quickly as the "smaller" rocks gradually became larger and larger ones.

Sakura had the heaviest one yet on her back as she scaled The Pit wall on the afternoon of the fifth day. Her makeshift sling sagged uncomfortably, allowing the rock to grind at her back and swing uncooperatively, and several times she had to stop and try and shift it into place again. After the third such adjustment, Sakura was almost to the top when she heard the very upsetting sound of fabric tearing.

" _Shoot_ ," she grumbled and reflexively pried her hand from the wall grip to reach awkwardly for the snapped sling. Instead, unfortunately, her hand found the stone, and instantly her chakra-enhanced grip suctioned onto its surface.

The sudden weight attached to her outstretched limb didn't lose its falling momentum and Sakura yelped as it wrenched at her arm. Another noise, possibly more upsetting, come from her shoulder socket and then there was pain and confusion and lots of things happened all too fast for anything to really have happened.

Blue. Very clear, brilliant blue. Dazzlingly bright blue. And then more blue, centred around black and framed by more black and two harsh, blond lines. Deidara's head, shadowed against the sky, hovered over Sakura's vision. Because she was looking up, she thought, feeling now that she was on her back. And then pain. Sakura groaned and sat up to rub at her shoulder and arm.

"Ah," Deidara carefully held Sakura's wrist and peered at her shoulder. He said, "this isn't terrible."

"It kills," she admitted, teeth clenched.

"Here, chew on this yeah. It'll help with the pain." Deidara held out some ordinary looking cloth, but she took it any way.

"Really?" she asked, only marginally trusting him, before cautiously biting a corner of the little rag.

Her sensei rolled his eyes and reached forward to manually stuff more of the fabric into her mouth. " _Really_ , yeah. Now stretch your neck that way and grit your teeth."

She obeyed, gritting her teeth out of annoyance more than anything. And while she was thinking just how much she doubted the power of the healing cloth thingy, Deidara pulled her arm and a very loud  _snap_ , accompanied by a greater amount of pain, interrupted her. She yelled and cried and swore for a good few minutes after.

"You could have mentioned what you were going to do," she sniffed, eventually having calmed enough to speak normally.

"It just would have given you time to worry about snapping the joint into place again, yeah. This was better." Deidara was actually smiling. It was weird to her because, for once, his eyes were relaxed, and she couldn't see the whites of his incisors or anything. "Go on, try it out if you don't believe me."

Her limb and joint moved just fine, but she could tell the area would be tender for a few days.

"What happened?" Her sensei asked, moving back to allow her some room.

Sakura forgot her momentary displeasure to contemplate his question. She remembered the chakra she had infused over her hands to help her climb, but had it then just as readily stuck to the falling rock? It didn't seem too surprising in hindsight, given that both were of the same material, just different quantitative amounts.

"I slipped," she answered distractedly. Deidara would believe that, given his (lack of) faith in her.

He frowned minutely but didn't press the issue. "Figures, yeah." His lips quirked, "did you 'slip' because you missed my company?"

"Like a dog misses fleas."

The afternoon continued. Her sensei had obligingly allowed her time to ice her arm and rethink strategies. Sakura was intrigued by her recent discovery, and so occupied herself searching for ways to test her question. At the top of The Pit, she found a few pebbles and rolled them in her hand, concentrating on holding them in place with her palm turned downward. They stayed.

With carefully controlled victory 'whoops,' Sakura went through varying levels of chakra for the pebbles, attempting to use the lowest amount possible for the given weight. Steadily she searched for increasingly heavier objects to test.

By evening, she felt confident enough in her ability with one hand to try the technique as soon as her other limb was recovered properly. She could not wait to show off to Deidara the next morning.

Except, Sakura did not know how to go about it. For one thing, she was primarily out of his line of sight down in the Pit, and for a second, more troublesome reason, she could not figure out how to apply her new trick to the task. The easiest way of carrying the weight of the stones was by using both hands, but then she was only able to use her feet to climb the wall. And it wasn't any less challenging to cradle the rock with one hand and climb with only the other to guide her movement, as the additional weight was exhausting in its own.

"Even the side of The Pit gets higher as I empty it," she murmured aloud, staring at said side, one hand raised to her chin thoughtfully. "The next step is to speed up the time to scale the wall, preferably while preserving energy."

This problem kept her work slow for several more days. Three weeks had gone by since she had first walked out onto the desert when she once again made a promising discovery. Before breakfast one morning, Sakura was practising her chakra grip again, this time focusing on more precise areas of application (just one finger pad versus the entire hand, for example), when, in boredom, she flicked at a pebble distractedly only for it to shoot across the gardens with enough force to "plink" loudly off Deidara's pail thirty paces away.

She stared for a moment, bemused. What had she done?

Unknowingly, she came to the wrong conclusion. "The chakra in my hand increased its strength!"

Which she ended up utilising to her advantage anyhow once out in the desert. Remembering the squads of shinobi that would trek across Konoha to and from missions, Sakura could not believe she had not thought of this "new" technique until only now. At the bottom of the terrible rock-filled hole, she excitedly stretched her arms and shook her legs out like a runner does before a sprint. In front of her was a two-story high rock barrier – and it was her goal to jump to its top.

She bounced on the pads of her feet, welcoming the hum of energy that collected there. "Concentrate on the chakra moving through your legs," she coached aloud, "and feel the movement of the jump."

Her first attempt was only  _just_  successful. The propulsion was there, aided by chakra, but the movement peaked with her awkwardly belly-flopping into the wall two metres above where she started. It ended rather pathetically with her delayed recoil, arms and legs prostrated like a starfish as she fell down.

It was unbearably trying and painful, then, figuring the correct way to use chakra to leap about. Sakura calculated angles and forces and muscle movement for hours, all the while avoiding imitating a bird who had flown heartedly into a glass door.

When Deidara inquired for lunch, she insisted on skipping, and vehemently opposed to him peeking down to check on her. "I'm working here! Don't look!"

"What? Did you catch your hair, yeah? Lob it off in a moment of panic?" Deidara asked her, standing where they both knew he could not see into the Pit. A second, then, "are you naked down there?"

"Ugh,  _no_. I just...  _later,_  okay? I'm busy."

"Your loss," he said from around a mouthful. Throughout the rest of his meal he made sure to be as noisily content as possible, "mmm-mm"ing and smacking his lips obnoxiously. Sakura tried to rub the dirt from her exposed skin and right her hair, just in case she looked too obviously like one who had been catapulting herself into a rock surface.

"Your pile here is still looking a little sparse, Sprout."

"Not for long!" was the last thing Sakura promised her sensei before he took to his perch again, presumably to sketch his fingers some more.

Her stomach was dismally empty hours later, but Sakura persisted into the twilight. As the sun merged with the horizon beyond her view, and the fine hairs on her body straightened with the promise of night-time chill, she hardened her resolve for the last attempt.

The height required more chakra than she had been allowing herself, but the nervousness that had followed her all day was quieting in her frustrated exhaustion. From across the expanse of the Pit, Sakura eyed the opposing wall and took a deep breath. She leaned into the surface behind her and scraped her boots at the rocks beneath her feet. Another deep breath and then she pushed forward into a run, skipping across the uneven ground until she was half-way through the bottom of the Pit. One more stride and she was sinking briefly into the bend of her knees, feeling her quadriceps aching, then – flight.

Time slowed –her perception of it, at the very least– as Sakura saw the Pit shrink beneath her, the wall of enclosure disappearing as she passed it. A smile broke across her tired face as she easily cleared the edge, nearing the apex of her jump.

And in that split second of halted motion at the top of her projection, Sakura's eyes latched onto Deidara's. Who was not at all on his stoop some ways off, but instead at the edge of the Pit, standing stupidly some metres beneath her. Sakura felt her pulse jump as she caught his sight. Time sped up.

"Ah fuck!" Her sensei yelped as her body collided, head first and limbs sprawling mindlessly, into him. They both tumbled as Deidara fell backwards, taking Sakura with him. They rolled over several times and came to a breathless halt a very long two seconds later.

On the ground, stretched out like two starfish, the student and teacher were quiet. Sakura could only hear her heart beating and her panting breaths. The first star had awoken in the canopy of the sky. Deidara was somewhere to her left, she guessed, she could hear him shuffling some in the dirt.

"That was unexpected, yeah," he said.

Sakura couldn't help the relieved, happy laughter that bubbled out at that.

Deidara was trying very hard to seem unimpressed the next day as Sakura perfected her new ability. He never complimented her or said anything at all to even recognise the achievement, but she would continuously catch him staring as she reappeared at the edge of the Pit, cradling a boulder against her torso. She divvied chakra between jumping and gripping, switching from one area immediately to the other. It was in no way easy, but it was much faster and more efficient than before. Her "sparse pile" had quickly grown.

With each rock, her process became more streamlined, until it was no longer necessary to distinguish leaping and gripping; each action came naturally and simultaneously. The largest rocks suddenly seemed less frightening and she took to moving them out over the course of a couple of days. It had been just over four weeks when she dropped the last armful of stones onto her pile.

The dreadful Pit was empty, its contents now spewed besides it like a resurfaced meal – as Deidara described it.

" _Eww_. That's gross," Sakura moaned, dropping her cocky smirk at her sensei's comparison.

"I'm serious," Deidara said, looking anything but as he waved his arms at the her collection. "It's like the thing got sick everywhere."

She rolled her eyes and tried not to mirror his emphasising gestures. "Well I don't know! What do you want me to do about that?"

It was the wrong thing to ask, because Deidara instantly smoothed his motions and almost slithered next to her with his slimy, contented air. Sakura groaned as he wrapped an arm over her shoulder and announced, with his ever present, devious merriment, "why how  _wonderful_  of you to inquire, my dear student!" She continued to whine and try to wriggle from his weird side-hug, but he just got louder and more delighted in response, sweeping his arm out to the desert. "Because yes, indeed, there is something to be done! And you can certainly help, yeah, dearest little Sprout! Stack them! Stack the boulders and make me a pretty something to look at!"

Sakura's inaudible whine ended with an annoyed, "you're the worst."

Deidara laughed and launched her towards an odd grouping of boulders. "It'll be fun!, yeah"

"It's never fun." She pulled a face and dodged the expected kunai.

"Fun!"

Like those from all societies before her, Sakura decided to build her stack in a pyramid structure. She started to move the largest rocks into a broad base of support, but was stopped at the end of the day (hours into the task), and informed by her teacher that he wanted a tower.

"Cylindrical, yeah? You can do that."

It took her eight days.

Deidara spent time playing with arts and crafts while she calculated and toiled away. She constructed the tower following a spiral progression around a solid centre, learning to account for foot and hand grips as she gained altitude. Larger stones gave way to smaller ones from bottom to top, the structure looking like a gradient spread of desert minerals.

"Makes me think of mosaic pieces," Deidara said, actually sincere.

Sakura had just finished and was herself admiring it when he'd shared the almost-compliment. She looked up at his profile from where he stood beside her, trying to hide her small smile with a squint against the glare of the sun. She asked, ready to worry, "what now?"

"Time to go home, yeah."

There was another round of bubbling giggles ready in her chest, relief and accomplishment right within her grasp – he continued, "so you can rest plenty for the next task."

Without having to fall at all, Sakura's spirits crashed spectacularly.

"The worst, the worst!" rose into the air along with Deidara's laughter.

o o o

Two days passed more slowly than any of the weeks previous. Sakura woke early to do the morning warm-ups and have a meal with Deidara, but was otherwise free to lounge around. It was very disconcerting. Her sensei made no indication of what she should be doing, so she remained uneasily wired and tense the entire time. Even when stretched out across a bench in the gardens, sunning there while pretending to read, she waited for him to appear suddenly with a new chore.

On the third day, Deidara actually kept her company some, intermittently chatting with her as he meandered around the gardens. The lazy talk and agreeable weather eventually lulled her into a relaxed stupor. Her sole task seemed to be refreshing their cucumber water (which was something a little exotic to Sakura).

"And any how, the guy in the banana suit disappeared into the trees and that was the last I saw of him. And the monkeys, come to think of it. After that they never bothered hanging around our house again." Sakura finished her story later that night, yawning heavily as she had already snuggled into her futon.

Deidara was on the other side of the screen, still standing and walking around from what she could hear. "Yeah, but did you ever get the gutters fixed?"

"Oh, I guess not," she answered sleepily, unable to keep her eyes open. "Wait, that's right, one of the genin teams did the work later that summer."

Her sensei snorted, and followed it with a typical snide comment. " _That's_  what Konoha genin do, yeah? Priceless."

Sakura yawned again, completely unperturbed, and waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. Good night, Sensei."

"Sleep well, hmm," he answered and Sakura didn't remember anything after that.

A splash of lukewarm water doused her head hours later. Having grown accustomed to waking herself over the past month, Sakura sprang from her bed like a cat with its tail on fire. She sputtered and cursed gratuitously, blindly stumbling for a moment or two before she could right her mind and situation.

She wiped at her eyes and wrung her clothes out while preparing to snap at Deidara, but his normal cackle and smug countenance was completely absent. She kept craning her neck around awkwardly a little more, still trying to spy her teacher, when she finally noticed a piece of paper at her feet. It had some water drops on it, smudging the words scrawled in ink across its surface, " _Meet me at the Pit in two hours._ _Full gear_ _._ "

Signed with a large, important "D".

Sakura raised one eyebrow at the mysterious demand. Two hours was barely enough time to walk that far into the desert, let alone carry out their morning routine. Shrugging her shoulders, she went about getting dressed and grabbing some recognisable fruit from the kitchen before starting her hike.

The walk was almost enjoyable now. She had gotten accustomed to the landscape, able to recognise certain rock formations and had even learned something about the plant life in the desert. The air was dry and the sun determinedly hot, but there was a beauty to the baked orange of the ground and the clarity of the saturated blue sky. Peculiar little bugs, resembling beige coloured ants, or perhaps crickets, supplied the soundtrack, creating an unmistakable hum that she often associated with summer afternoons.

It was sort of peaceful, she thought, letting her eyes drift close as she walked. She breathed deeply and let a smile grace her lips. Something razor sharp sliced through the corner of her ear.

Sakura tensed, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat as a wave of searing pain shocked through her system. Her gaze muddied with unbidden tears, distorting a figure that appeared in front of her. Curse words and exclamations clamoured in her mind, slowing it as the person adapted an offensive fighting stance.

The figure had draped layers of black material around him, covering everything but his eyes. That was all she could see.

There was a fist in her face, barely missing her nose as she fell into an automatic back roll. An axe kick followed her to the ground, prompting her to spring to her feet again. The chakra that propelled her evasive movements was automatic and liberating, doubling the distance she would have otherwise gained. Her attacker, however, was keen to shadow her. Another assault of punches and intermittent kicks forced Sakura into a defensive retreat. All she was able to do was block, each blow hitting her forearms with their full strength.

It hurt.

She closed her eyes.

"Don't do that, yeah!" A grip caught at her wrist, pulling her arms so they were wrenched away from covering her upper body. The attacker held them at her sides as the two came to an abrupt halt. She panted and felt sand and dirt in her mouth, sent into the air from the brief scuffle, and had to blink several times to clear her vision.

Warm, calloused fingertips and bright eyes only somewhat obscured by shadows.

Sakura wanted to punch herself, or more appropriately, her sensei. "Deidara! You-you-you-"

Ass? Jerk? What was the term she was looking for?

Her sensei released her arms to latch onto her shoulders, probably to make it easier to shake her, which he did. "Never,  _never_ , close your eyes dummy!"

" _Dummy?_  What the  _hell_?" she snapped. "Is this your idea of a joke?"

"It was meant to be training, yeah. Aren't you a ninja?"

Sakura's complaints ceased. As did her jokes about his costume. Her glare fell from accusingly throwing mental daggers into her sensei's face to land somewhere on the black armour protecting his chest. The abstract thought that Deidara was probably very hot in those clothes flitted through her mind. She was more concerned with how scared she had been a few seconds ago, or rather, concerned with berating herself for allowing such a weakness.

"I can't believe they even gave you one of these." The hands were at her nape, fiddling with the tie of her hitai-ate.

A part of her wondered the same.

The fiddling continued until the familiar weight of her village insignia slipped away. The metal hung in front of her, suspended at just the right distance to allow her to focus on the insignia there. The leaf symbol lazily turned this way and that.

"So I will be taking this, then?" Deidara asked, snatching the hitai-ate away to wrap it around his neck.

It took a moment for the image of Deidara wearing a leaf insignia,  _her_  hitai-ate, to sink into her brain. And then another moment for the overwhelming feeling of annoyance to seize her. Sakura reached out to grab it, but her sensei danced away from her hand.

"I said, I'm taking this. You don't want it back, yeah? Is that what you're saying?"

"Okay, laugh, laugh. Very funny." He dodged again. Sakura's frowned resurfaced. "Sensei!"

It turned into a chase. Running across the desert, jumping over rocks, skipping to avoid the odd gecko, climbing up ledges, attempting to push her sensei off said ledges. To her delight, the game was actually  _fun_. And not as difficult as she might have thought. After just a month of toiling away in the Pit, her strength was unquestionably greater, as was her stamina. Even the harsh environment had somehow dulled compared to how she had felt upon first arriving in Iwa.

Deidara was talented, she realised. Despite his odd fascination with doodles and lounging about admiring his hands, he was incredibly lithe and durable. He was effortlessly evading Sakura while managing to challenge her all the while. As an opponent, while refraining from using any jutsu, he proved plenty formidable.

Though his taunts could use a little work. He leaned heavily on the 'sprout' theme.

Between a volley of punches, he joked, " _maaan_ , all I need is a bottle of herbicides, yeah?"

His smile was wide and self-congratulatory, his eyes closing with the high curl of his lips.

Sakura's hand closed over her hitai-ate. Her grip caught, dragging her along with Deidara's movement as he backed away. His expression had just started to turn to surprise when the heat of the metal finally registered in her mind.

"Shit," she snapped, whipping her hand away.

In his stupor, Deidara didn't even flinch to avoid her retreating appendage, instead taking a full slap to his jaw. He stumbled, caught her arm after the contact, and then proceeded to fall backwards.

The plunge would have been comically exaggerated in her response to her flimsy hit if it hadn't been for the fact Deidara was pulling her along with him. Right over one of those ledges they had been skimming all morning.

Sakura was indeed a ninja, she decided a good many metres later. Where she was crouching rather unperturbed, though bruised and dusty, at the bottom of the fall, her sensei was spread across the desert floor, limbs flailed out in all directions. In his black attire, he looked a little like an ink stain.

"You okay?" She ventured, not doubting his health for a beat. Sakura poked at his boot.

He raised himself after a minute, staring directly at her. Wordlessly he unwrapped the blue material from around his throat and tossed the forehead protector to her. Matching his earlier hundred watt smile with her own, Sakura stared down at the shining plate, admiring the styled groove on its surface.

A curious look crossed over Deidara's face, but in her happiness, Sakura didn't think anything of it.

o o o


	3. On The Way

 

o o o

_On the walk, obvious and small_

o o o

It was odd, what they were doing, but Sakura allowed her mind to wander.

For instance, there was no weather in Iwagakure, Sakura mused. Getting into winter months and it was still relatively warm and precipitation free. She squinted up at the cloudless sky. Squinting partially from the ever persistently bright sun, and partially from tears.

The wooden bat cracked into her forearms once more.

She tasted salt as sweat ran between her lips. No weather even to distract her from her sensei's new torture – rather _–_ training routine. He seemed to be favouring the hard style martial arts ever since their spar the other week, finding that her defence was less than satisfactory.

"The truth is, Sprout, there will always be times when you can't dodge an attack. Might as well prepare your body for it."

Her entire body, she found out. From her arms to her shins, to her chest and stomach, shoulders, toes, anything; even her ears, one still smarting from being nicked. Granted, some of the exercises did not consist of beatings, as the current one featured, but they were all equally as physically and mentally laborious. Meditating while balancing a cauldron full of boiling water on her abdomen was one of the less extreme methods Deidara had given her.

"Half way through," he chirped. "You're over the lump."

"It's 'over the hump'," she corrected before another loud crack split her ears.

"Nag, nag, nag. Is that all you can do, yeah?"

"Don't I deserve at least that? You  _are_  hitting me repeatedly with a reinforced piece of wood that would only splinter from steel being driven into it at 4000 pounds over force."

The sound of a door sliding open interrupted Deidara mid-swing, and the two looked over to find an attractive young woman teetering into the courtyard. "Oh, Sakura," the woman said in a cultivated, dulcet tone. It was Otsuka, the liaison who had greeted Sakura when she first arrived in Iwa.

With a pronounced grumble, Deidara lowered the bat to his side, leaning on it casually as the guest took her time stepping carefully over to them. She was wearing a yukata and sandals which, while pretty, were not suited for the damaged and odd stone pathway.

"What can I do for you, yeah?" Sakura gave her sensei a stern look. He added, reluctantly, "Otsuka?"

Ignoring the question, Otsuka took a few minutes to worry and chide over Sakura's condition. Sakura felt her cheeks warm, wishing the mothering could have been done in private and not in front of her ninja instructor.

"I'm fine, fine," she insisted as pleasantly as possible.

When finally satisfied, though only  _just_  judging by the cute purse to her lips, Otsuka produced a scroll from within the sleeves of her outfit. "I've brought news from the Tsuchikage-sama. It appears you have a mission."

Deidara let the bat clatter to the ground as he swiped the scroll away, eagerly tearing through the seal. After scanning the text, his excitement immediately dimmed, his pout securing his features. With dramatic disdain, " _ooh._  I see.  _We_  have a mission."

Sakura perked up at this, temporarily ignoring the pain, and similarly plucked the scroll from Deidara's hands. She expected weeding, retrieving groceries, sweeping temple stoops, but Deidara really was not fibbing about Iwa's different approach to ninja training.

"A security check?" She couldn't decide her reaction. Fascination? Disappointment?

Deidara rolled his eyes, not hiding his boredom and disdain with the prospect. Sakura's first impulse was to nag him about being difficult, but she stopped short. Deidara was standing (one hip cocked  _very_  slightly) with his arms crossed over his front, and while normally this was humorously comparable to a spoiled child – the cut lines of his biceps and deltoids evident even beneath his mesh tee spoke volumes of Deidara's lifestyle. He was active, he enjoyed physical work. And going from what she had learned about his personality, he didn't exactly appreciate anything dull.

As it was, he already had to deal with a greenhorn that wasn't even from Stone.

She wilted.

Otsuka misinterpreted this, taking their fallen expressions to mean hesitation. "Of course, because of Sakura's recent training, I can request a delay for your start date. Allow you some time to recover and be properly prepared for the mission." The young woman smile reassuringly, unaware of her mistake. "You won't have to worry about your student this way, Dei! She'll be ready to join you in peak condition."

Sakura saw Deidara's eyebrow twitch and smirked when he withheld from correcting the woman. It would have been too cruel even for him, given Otsuka had flexed her own, rather wanting, bicep muscle and was sporting an encouraging victory sign.

"Thank you, Otsuka," Deidara forced between a grimace and dubious attempt at a smile.

The guest was oblivious to his aggravation and seemed satisfied. "Very well! I'm looking forward to your reports, Dei, Sakura."

And then she teetered away just as adorably and awkwardly as she had entered. After the door slid shut once more, Deidara slouched over with a long sigh.

"I guess it's not the most thrilling objective," Sakura tried diplomatically. She bent down to pick up the bat, clenching her teeth as she gripped it, and tried to offer it to Deidara in hopes of cheering him up. Forming a fist caused splitting fissures of pain to shoot up her arms. Chakra ran to her fingers automatically, compensating for her inability to fully curl a fist, and alleviated the pressure instantly.

Her sensei raised an eyebrow at the offer and then frowned. He took the stick and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. "Be careful, yeah. Any way, that's enough for now. You heard the lady, time to rest up."

As he sulked away, she asked, jumbling the word, "what is  _Care-ee-eye-at_  like?"

Keryiat was the name of their destination.

Deidara's tone was remarkably flat. "Keryiat's up north of here. It's a mining town."

o o o

Hiking was tiring. Sakura had wrapped her legs and arms as best as she knew how, even allowing her sensei to help, but moving in general was still a hassle. She remembered days in the academy when she would feel like collapsing after an obstacle course or two day expedition exercise – this was worse. No matter how exhausted she felt, even the task of sleeping was not easily manageable. Any little adjustment made itself known to her. Everything was sore.

And yet she felt happier than she remembered feeling as a student. She missed her friends, of course, but she felt as if lately she had been smiling more. As she hissed with the effort of rearranging her pack, it occurred to her that she might be a sadist. How did one find torture and extreme levels of stress to be a happy thing?

Sakura chanced a furtive glance at Deidara, who was walking next to her, and twisted her lips contemplatively.

It wasn't that Iruka-sensei had ever doubted her, on more than one occasion he'd even praised her, it just seemed that perhaps his support was more coddling than anything. The Haruno family was not a ninja clan, and therefore it was a notable accomplishment when Sakura scored higher than her pedigree classmates... Though notable only because it was not expected to happen.

In fact, it hadn't always been encouraged either.

Senior ninjas were not interested in perfect test scores from a Haruno, they looked for perfect test scores from a Nara or a Hyuuga. And from Sasuke. But then – so had she.

"We're almost there, yeah," Deidara murmured, catching her attention. For the last morning of their hundred kilometre trek, he'd been increasingly quiet. Which was almost suspicious coming from him. While not exactly chatty, Deidara did have strong opinions on varying subjects, and he was normally curious about her responses. He was also acutely observant, and then eager to comment on the things that had intrigued him. He'd lost some of that on the mission so far.

"Are we? How can you tell?" With no map, and a rather interchangeable surrounding, Sakura was curious.

His response was nodding his chin to the sky in front of them. Between two of Earth Country's greener and more magnificent mountains, there was something obscuring the sky.

Unlike the hidden village, decidedly in the middle of a dry, rocky desert, this part of the country was climbing ever closer to a maritime climate. Literally climbing, in Sakura's opinion, as they'd been gaining altitude continuously over the entire route. It made sense, according to her general knowledge of geography, as the country's northern region was dominated by a vast coastline. It meant the land and the weather were different.

Also, there were more low hanging clouds, she noticed.

Against those clouds, as her sensei had indicated, Sakura could just see a dark haze stretching up from the crux of the two peaks. Smokestack waste, she belatedly identified. A part of her started to understand Deidara's subdued disposition.

As they passed the final curve of the mountainside, the lush and healthy plant life fouled under the plumes of Keryiat. Sakura could easily discern a break between the better protected southern mountainside and the plant life directly exposed to the mining operations.

From the road's vantage point above the city, Keryiat's urban sprawl was low and wide; a random spattering of drill towers and chutes spiked upwards above the roofs, cart lines suspended stories off the ground jumped from building to building, and chimneys belched a thick, constant stream of pollutants into the air. All of the structures were composed of random cuts of tin or exposed beams, and all of it stuck somewhere on the grey scale.

Deidara was silent as they descended into the industrial deluge.

Soon the noise of economic drive filled the void. There was the rhythm of pumps, the hum of generators and batteries, and the churning of smelters all conglomerating to create a strange chorus that sang of hard labour. Then there was the sheer amount of labour itself.

The city was packed with people: tall men, stocky women, gangly children; all of them covered in a fine layer of mining dust. Some were engineers or managers, and others clearly miners, but everyone was a part of the grey crowd filling the streets.

Sakura could not decide where to look first. There was so much noise, so much clamour and din, so many faces. Too many young faces, she thought, honing in on a throng of academy age children. They moved like little sentinels, looking to have come from a long shift with their half lidded eyes and drooping postures.

One of the girls in the line was almost Ino's twin – but three kilograms lighter. It was not nearly the satisfying physique Sakura might have thought it would be.

Startled by this revelation, she was too preoccupied to avoid bumping into one of the many people hurrying through the streets. Her canteen clattered to the ground, knocked free in the collision.

"Sorry," Sakura offered immediately, twirling around to apologise.

Not entirely sure if it was the person she had hit or not, nonetheless a worker had found the canteen and held it out for her. The woman smiled, as if unsurprised by the obvious outsider's fumblings. "Here you are."

"Oh, thank you," Sakura said, bowing respectively to the woman. When she straightened, however, the woman's smile had faded, replaced instead by a sneer.

"Some nerve," the worker said around a curled lip, huffing and turning away quickly. "Unbelievable..."

Sakura, entirely confused, shrugged and jogged to catch up to Deidara.  _Weird_ , she thought. But then, she amended, maybe it wasn't... All around her, people walking by would spot her and within a moment adapt a disgusted look.

She could have sworn someone spat very loudly at her feet just after she had passed by them.  _Am I imagining this?_

Okay, that time she was definitely not mistaking it. Her eyes had drifted to a man seated at a food stand, and given his rather unattractive and slightly scary visage she had ducked her head somewhat as they approached where he was eating. His eyes had scanned over by chance at first, but then very obviously jerked back to glare at her. For a good three seconds she felt trapped under the stranger's scrutiny. She frowned warily as he proceeded to push his seat out from the stall and say something indiscernible to one of his buddies. At once, four very surly people had all focused their attention on her. She deepened the furrow in her brows and shrank away instinctively, glad that they would soon be behind her. As she continued to move, Sakura kept a very careful eye on the group.

Just as she was about to sigh in relief, the band of four started to follow her and Deidara. Sakura snapped her head around and swore.

"Sensei," she hissed, but her sensei ignored her, distractedly glowering around at the bleak and decrepit city. Jabbing him the arm for good measure, she tried again, " _Deidara-sensei!_ "

He turned to her, grousing, " _What,_ yeah?"

She swallowed heavily and whispered, "there are some people following us."

This didn't seem to faze her teacher much, but obligingly he glanced over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes when he spotted the group.

"Thieves?" he wondered aloud before halting in the middle of the street. "I'll take care of this."

Sakura gripped the straps of her bag as she hung back, for a second actually thankful for Deidara's blunt approach to everything.

His blond head barely passed some of the shoulders of the miserable people now glaring instead at Deidara. Words were exchanged, the first bit coming from her sensei, things like "problem" and "me" and "yeah".

The man who had first spied Sakura answered. He practically snarled as he spoke, wringing a pick axe he was carrying.

Then an odd thing happened.

Deidara turned back to look at Sakura, but instead of meeting her worried, curious stare, his eyes found another point above her brow. His normal cockiness was gone and his eyes were wide.

Sakura felt her chest seize uncomfortably, unused to this expression.

Her sensei turned to the miners for one last second before he was suddenly propelling right towards her. He covered ten metres before Sakura could fully register his movement. And then he was in front of her.

"What –" she attempted, cut off as Deidara pulled her fully against him. She crashed into his body, arms stuck to her side as he clamped a hold tight across her back and  _flew_.

Almost, any how. Sakura could hardly tell that Deidara was running at all, there was just a lurching force as he pushed from the ground, and then a rush of wind surrounding them as he moved. She was crushed against him with the speed and his unwavering grasp.

They stopped on a small, somewhat obscured roof, a wave of air and kicked up particles following a second after. Sakura's face was flat against Deidara's sternum, held in place by an insistent hand at the back of her head. His heart was racing in his chest. She could hear it perfectly, aware that it matched the pace of her own.

"Shit," her sensei breathed, drawing the syllable out. "That was fucking close, yeah."

"Sensei?" The question was muffled against his chest. Their position was a little painful for her.

He released her slowly, bringing both his palms up to either side of her face. Tentatively, Sakura watched Deidara's face for some sort of explanation. But again he wasn't meeting her eyes. His arm moved, and she felt the ever present weight of her hitai-ate slip away.

"I got so used to seeing you in this." He trailed off, "I didn't even think..."

Everything clicked. Sakura slammed her palm into her forehead. "Oh,  _stupid!_ Stupid, stupid, stupid." Punctuating each one with another slap.

"Of course they'd be pissed seeing a Leaf kunoichi here. They have issues enough with us  _Iwa_  nin." He swore, and again, "that was close, yeah."

"Do you think word will get around?" she asked, clutching the headband to her chest once Deidara had handed it over.

"Hmm. Pink haired Leaf nin in town?  _Nooo,_ that won't be talked about."

"Ugh, fine." Sakura huffed. "Well? What do we do? Henge?"

"Do you feel like you can hold a henge for hours at a time, yeah?"

She didn't answer, instead rested a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow.  _Better idea, genius?_

He did have a "better" idea, as it turned out. An hour later Sakura was hovering anxiously in the middle of a broken into barracks room. Deidara had just returned from a short absence with a paper bag under his arm, smiling slyly like a cat as he slipped through the window.

The sight of one of her sensei's more normal expressions eased Sakura's trepidation, if briefly. She was immediately suspect when he all but sauntered to the single table between two bunk beds. With his back to her, she could hear some rustling and other vague noises, but was clueless to his actions.

Deidara faced her again, smile still on his lips.

Glancing at the opened box on the table behind him, Sakura drew her brows together as she tried to see what it was in the uncooperative light of the setting sun.

Pictured on the box front was a pretty, smiling model with her hair spilling over her shoulder.

"Oh no," she said, crossing her arms across her chest with recognition. "No, no, no!"

"It's no big deal, yeah." He had a little bottle in his plastic covered hands.

Sakura wasted no time diving to the window, fingers glowing with chakra, ready to bolt – sore limbs be damned. A strong hold wrapped around her middle and in a blink she found herself in the room's tiny attached bathroom.

"Relax," her sensei all but purred, too happy with his plan.

 _Hell no!_  She tried to claw herself from Deidara's grip, wriggling and twisting with mounting panic. "Wait, wait! Sensei, wait! Please?"

He directed her away from the door, out manoeuvring each of her desperate lunges. It took another moment for Deidara to get her to the sink, where Sakura was spitting and hissing as he shook the bottle of brown dye over her scalp. He stood at her back, bending her forward over the porcelain ledge as she tried to beg and scrape away from her horrible fate.

"Come on, come on!" she insisted, reaching around frantically with a free arm, searching to latch onto an escape route. Deidara had disabled her right hand in his own, and kept her lower limbs still by crushing her waist into the sink with his hips firmly pressing into her.

There was a horrible, indescribable noise as he emptied the bottle onto her head. The dye concoction was cool on her skin as it landed in her prized locks. One sustained whimper continued well into Deidara applying the rest of the colouring.

"You toad," Sakura accused weakly, giving up on running away now that the deed had started. She felt like crying. "You're a total arsehead."

"Whatever," he said, his voice low and still the tiniest bit smug. "Why don't you just relax, yeah."

 _Or can you not even handle this, Leaf Kunoichi_ , she imagined him adding.

Reluctantly, she did begin to let her haunches drop. After a while she was rather pliant, contented both by his ministrations and the unintended warmth of him standing so close. There was something enjoyable about the way he was working his hands through her hair, alternating between massaging and combing. It was firm but slow and steady.

She sighed. A little low, long.

Deidara's hands slowed and then stopped altogether as he stepped away. She had to peek an eye open at this, not too aware they'd actually drifted shut. "Sensei?"

"This needs to set. Rinse it in about twenty minutes." His purr had dissipated, she noted absently.

"Ok..." but the door was already slamming shut.

o o o

Later that evening, two people slinked through the back alleys of Keryiat. One was a disgruntled brunette girl and the other was a rather striking young man.

"I can't believe you get to wear a henge," Sakura growled. She was petting her hair, now hanging down one side of her front in a braid, and glaring at her sensei's obvious jutsu-induced visage.

She knew for a fact he would sooner croak than stain his platinum hair pitch black.

"I'm capable of maintaining it, yeah," he reminded her. The style had changed as as well, free to fall down his back instead of tied in the typical loose ponytail. His clothes, like hers, had been switched to a tailored two-piece, dark grey gi. Around their forearms and above their ankles were matching sets of black wraps.

Surprisingly, these few changes had worked effectively enough. Sakura didn't recognise herself at all.

"Toadarse," she repeated for the millionth time. After Deidara sniggered and again refused to feel anything relative to sympathy or remorse, she changed subjects. "How are your clones?"

Sakura was referring to the two Deidara had set off earlier for the outskirts of the town, one as himself and the other transformed to look as she had that morning. He was hopeful they would help detract any lingering suspicion about the two real shinobi who were about to report for the mission.

He inclined his head. "Fine, yeah." And then he groaned, worrying her, before he declared, "this would be so much better if you could, I don't know,  _use_  some ninja techniques."

Rolling in her eyes for her naivety, she took his bait. "What do you mean?"

"Using chakra for faster travel." He stopped walking to bring a hand to his chin contemplatively. Sakura backtracked to stand with him. Deidara was staring at the ground very seriously. Then, aloud, "I could teach you now, yeah."

Sakura looked around and took note of the lopsided, erratic architecture around them. Split levels, oddly hanging rooms, rickety fire escapes, random piles of unused materials, abandoned scaffolding, discontinued cart tracks, lines and lines of leaking pipes, shards of snapped metal and broken glass. Randomly nailed everywhere were hazard signs.

"All right," she agreed, lifting her shoulders. Both people present, though neither mentioning it, knew that Sakura had already nearly taught herself how utilise chakra in such a way.

He explained what else he could. "It's not just about leaping over a ledge onto your feet, you've got to gauge distance and quickly understand your environment. There'll be obstacles and tight spaces, yeah. And sometimes you'll have to use your hands to swing or vault. You'll need to think about what can support your weight, and for how long. Or how your angle of impact could screw you if you're not careful, yeah. And the faster you go, the harder all of that becomes."

 _Maybe too soon, after all_. She swallowed thickly.

"Ready?"

Her sensei didn't leave her a choice; he was gone before she could shake her head 'no'.  _"Ugh!_  Y-you jerk!"

It was a nasty habit how he always took off so readily, simply assuming she would somehow scrape after him.

Several minutes later she landed on the balustrade of Keryiat's most distinguished building, elbows knocked, hair dishevelled, and lungs screaming for air. Too winded to care, Sakura rolled, perhaps collapsed, forward to land sprawled on the seventh floor balcony.

Deidara's face, curtained by ebony hair, blocked her view of the ceiling.

"Could have done better on the finish, yeah," he teased, offering a hand. Sakura exhaled heavily and gathered herself before graciously accepting it.

"I might have also broken one or two things," she mumbled sheepishly, thinking back to the roof she'd accidentally slammed a foot through.

"Think they'll notice?" was his sly response. Sakura shared in it. She was glad to see her sensei had come back to himself a little. He tagged on, "now for this Tootsi."

"Tsuji. Tsuji Jomu." The name of their client, she recited.

Deidara waved his hand absently. "Same difference."

"' _Tsuji'_ \- or 'sir' is fine."

Sakura started at the sudden arrival of a third person. Standing just beyond where she and her teacher were huddled was a man. He was middle aged and dressed well, with a stern but not altogether unappealing face. He was also their client, further reflected in how he managed to avoid the grey coat of dirt everyone else in the area wore.

Deidara looked nonplussed, making Sakura wonder if he had timed saying the name incorrectly with the man's arrival.

"Reporting from Iwagakure," her sensei said, flat tone back in place.

"Sir." Sakura bowed in greeting, trying to recover from Deidara's rude address.

"Hn," Tsuji returned. He walked to an open door and directed, "my office."

He disappeared inside, leaving the student and teacher to trail behind. Deidara scoffed and mouthed a choice word for their client. Sakura was tempted to agree but hid it better.

The room was the nicest thing she had so far seen in Keryiat. It was modern and comfortable, very clean. Behind the large desk, each stationed in either corner, were two hulking masses of muscle. No one acknowledged the hired guns.

Tsuji sat down in a very plush chair and brought together his fingers as he considered both Deidara and Sakura. He decided to address the former.

For the first few minutes they talked, the conversation was one-sided. Tsuji went on about manufacturing and production, how the mining and refinery business was one way of strengthening both Earth and its hidden village, and how important it was to maintain good revenue.

Sakura was not exactly sure how this was related to their job until finally Tsuji became quiet. He moved to slide a single manilla file across the polished wood of his desk, letting it rest in front of her sensei.

"I'm sure you'll find nothing disagreeable," he said.

Deidara hadn't inched once during the whole speech. Very slowly, he reached to retrieve what she guessed was their check list. What did it include? She hadn't seen any fencing or guard towers, or anything that resembled security aside from the two silent figures in the office.

Tsuji said, catching her attention, "you could not have arrived sooner, shinobi. Two foreign ninja were seen in the streets today. Walking around casually, if you could imagine."

Her sensei feigned some reaction at this, assuring he would deal with that problem first. More words were exchanged, none of which she contributed, and then they were dismissed, given a week to carry out the job.

"Sensei," Sakura tried once they had returned to the balcony, but her teacher said nothing before taking off into the shadowy city. It was difficult following him without the tell tale glare of his normally blond head. Over rooftops and between elevated tracks, she would only catch a glimpse of his shadow from a dull light here and there. She eventually became aware that they weren't going back to where they'd rented a room earlier. Frustrated after crossing a rather long and shabbily tiled roof, only for Deidara's silhouette to disappear again over its edge, she called out, "this isn't funny any more, Sensei!"

She peaked over the edge into a poorly lit alley that was intermittently obscured by rising puffs of smelly steam. There was an outline of an old run of scaffolding about a story down. Rolling her eyes, she dropped to it, disappointed when she landed more heavily and loudly than she would have liked. An inappropriate word slipped through her lips, just before a hand clamped over them.

Immediately, Sakura was struggling and snarling, but then a familiar voice whispered to her to "quit barking, yeah."

The hold was withdrawn. She seethed, as quietly as could, "a little warning next time!"

There was an unamused response, then a signal for her to stay silent and to follow closely. The scaffolding they were on ran along the side of the extra long building, parallel to a line of filthy, near opaque windows. There was a lot of noise coming from inside, and after straining to see why, Sakura realised they were looking into another large barracks. There were lines beds and swarms of people hurrying between them. Some mattresses were already occupied.

"What are we doing here," she asked, not bothering to whisper any more. She really doubted anyone would be able to hear them.

Deidara kept his eyes on the people below them, a crease between his eyebrows. "These are our targets.  _They're_  the security risk."

o o o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how people read this fanfiction back in the day and said this isn't a political story or that the writing/plot does not have depth. Like. Really? I mean. I was a young writer and a dumbass -still am on the latter there - but. y'know. i had things to say. poorly. but there was social commentary and critical reading of the source material a-plent-ee.


	4. When You Were Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About the canon discrepancies – most notable probably will be the absence of Kaguya and her origin story of chakra, the moon not being created by a dude? what?, motives for Akatsuki and its (various) leaders, and Kabuto won't be a big bad. Also, assume all female characters have no reason to arbitrarily be weaker than their male counterparts. Tsunade is most definitely, perfectly capable of fighting toe-to-toe with Orochimaru, or Jiraiya (not that they would), no holds barred, and winning.

 

O O O

_You were hung up and lied to_

O O O

 

Deidara was not happy with their mission.

They hadn't stayed at the barracks for very long. Despite knowing evening time was one prime for conspiring, her sensei had chosen to return to their lodging for the night. And although the prospect of physical downtime was a relief, Sakura, too, was still distracted by their apparent goals.

After sweeping the room for surveillance, Deidara was ready to talk again. Sakura sat cross-legged on her bed, frowning across to where her sensei mirrored her opposite. There was mutual frowning for a moment, though Sakura suspected neither intended the expression to be taken personally. In their short time together, she had noticed that both she and her Iwa sensei were both thoughtful frowners.

Glancing to the manilla folder in Deidara's lap, Sakura asked, "why are the workers a threat?"

Deidara, whose gaze eyes had been on the concrete floor, made an obvious show of rolling his eyes and sighing noisily, clearly feeling he was being asked to explain the obvious. "Think about it, yeah. The workers have some power here. They're the ones who get things done. If they start making trouble, then the company suffers."

"But why would they make trouble?"

"What's your house like back in Konoha, yeah, Sprout? Do you share your house with six other families, or sixty strangers? Use a public bathroom every time you need to shit?" Deidara said, never one to give a simple answer.

Sakura made a face at his crass words, but didn't dispute where his point was going. "I guess I thought that the security risk would be shinobi, you know, spies or something. Maybe a person siphoning profits?"

"Tch, that's happening too," her sensei growled, looking aside under a lined brow, "except the people who are doing that sort of thing are the ones who contracted out to Iwa."

"Oh." Sakura wondered how he knew that, or if he was making assumptions. With a displeased sigh of her own, she asked, "is Tsuji-san afraid of sabotage?"

"The suits are afraid of organised representation."

This was a strange concept to most in the shinobi world, who pledged loyalty and accepted any condition – risky or not. Those who didn't like the conditions rebelled, or a coup took place, and then new loyalty replaced the old. Given her appreciation for reading, Sakura was aware – as was Deidara, apparently – that this didn't always apply to the civilian world. "Like unions? Is that what you're saying?"

"More or less, yeah." He shrugged.

Inside the manilla folder were pictures and profiles of several labourers. Deidara hopped over to sit next to her as he planned when and where they would be able to track their targets best. There wasn't any mention of how they would engage, or even if they would at all. Sakura didn't feel like pressing the issue. In a way, she was immediately sympathetic to the situation of the so-called "security risks". There was one man who was insistent upon better medical treatment for those injured or made sick from the mines, and a woman who proposed new monitors for the toxicity and air quality in the shafts. The list of complaints addressed many issues that seemed perfectly reasonable to her.

"They're all coming from different parts of the operation, yeah," Deidara pointed out as she scanned pages, having already flipped through all the profiles himself. "If the problem was contained to a certain section of workers, I'm sure Tootsie would have already happily solved the problem by bringing in fresh blood. But it seems it's harder for him to replace engineers or assayers."

"But not all these people will be in the barracks," Sakura murmured. "Couldn't Tsuji-san just separate the mess halls and baths to solve his problem? Keep them from interacting as much as possible?"

"People will always find a way to communicate – especially when it concerns revolting against a common enemy." Deidara pulled one leg under the other as he brought a knee up to his chin. With his free arm he underlined bits of information he found particularly relevant. Sakura noticed he wrote just as easily with his left hand as he had sketched with his right in the past. His weight shifted on the mattress as he leaned over to reach the far side of the page, his side pressing warmly against her own. When he pulled away again, saying something she failed to comprehend immediately, she remembered again how the room was cold.

Different weather from Iwagakure, she told herself.

"He seems like the right guy," Sakura confirmed after a pause, processing her sensei's words on delay. He had suggested a target for them to pursue come morning, and not wanting to merely act as a parrot, she quickly assessed as to why he would be the person to look into first. "Low-level management, he'll likely have some leadership qualities and familiarity with playing to people's strengths. He's got the basics down in terms of organization skills, most likely."

Deidara gave her a curious look, and Sakura craned her neck to stare back at him.

"What?" She asked, feeling her cheeks redden. Capillaries opening and the increased flow of blood providing a blush, she thought.

Tilting his head, charcoal lined blue eyes squinting, he asked, "did Konoha realize they actually gave me someone to work with when they shipped you off, yeah?"

Sakura could feel the words brush against her, they were sitting so close. Tickling her lips before she breathed them in and they settled with an unusual, swelling weight in her stomach. Something bubbled inside her, a response she didn't plan to say that rose up her throat and was in the air between them before she could help it. "They only sent me because I'm not very much to work with. That's what the elders think, really."

"Typical village leadership _wisdom_ ," saying the word like 'bullshit.' "They only place value on blood-limits and monsters. They can't see true talent even if it's right in front of them."

Sakura's hackles rose up in automatic defence of Konoha and she turned away from Deidara, straightening her shoulders. Sure, she was good at test-taking, and she did well on practicals, but Sakura knew she was nothing special. Nothing like Sasuke, or Hinata, or even Ino. "I'm sure the Hokage knows what he's doing. He's the Third, he's known as _The Professor_. They knew who they were sending out here."

Someone just average enough, she sealed behind her lips.

Deidara waited for her to say something else, or maybe had something to say himself and eventually decided against it, but either way he left her mattress after a long moment. He sighed and stomped his way to the bathroom, effectively calling lights out.

The weight in Sakura's stomach didn't disappear, but remained and became an uncomfortable mass of unidentified emotions. She didn't know whether to cry or smile, but she wondered how a compliment – had that been a compliment? She doubted – had gone to sour so quickly. Feeling tired and suddenly overwhelmed, she threw herself onto her stiff bed and hard pillow and hid under the old blanket until her turn for the wash room came.

Neither said anything more, both unwilling to acknowledge the tense and questionable atmosphere. Backs to each other, neither slept for a long time, but pretended to all the same.

Sakura only found rest after reviewing the pictures in the folder again; dusty faces and stern expressions that lulled her to sleep.

O O O

There was the shrill call of a shift whistle at zero-four hundred hours. Sakura and Deidara were both awake when it started, but for its twelve second duration, they each froze in their actions and slammed hands over their ears. Or in Deidara's case – whose hands were tangled in wraps he was attempting to put on – collapsed back onto bed and tried to hide from the noise under pillows. He whined and cursed with the whistle.

"Why the hell did we get stuck in a building with a giant-ass kettle atop it, yeah?" Deidara grumbled after it had stopped. " _Uugh_ – but they're all over town, too."

It hadn't been as obvious in the middle of the day when there was plenty of commotion to obscure the shift change signal to some degree. "And it will be _every_ morning."

Sakura didn't mind the early rising so much. Outside the window it was still dark; there was only the tiniest promise of daylight teasing the sky into a pallet of beautiful blues. She liked watching the stars both when they lit up like lanterns and subsequently blew out for rest before the sun arrived.

"Who are we tailing today," she asked, reluctantly facing the present time once more.

"Kurumada."

Kurumada was lucky enough to have a job above ground - in charge of testing the ore quality from potential mining veins. Depending on the analysis, an operation could quickly become very costly if the separation process of the ore was too extensive and its by-products unusable.

Sakura halted in the middle of weaving her braid, sadly still a warm brunette hue, and gave Deidara a flat look. "If we're doing Kurumada-san today, then why the heck am I awake so early?"

Her sensei returned the look. "Sprout, yeah, you're my student. I can't sit around and let you get lazy." Deidara punctuated the sentence by producing his training bat from within a scroll. And a smile.

From the time Sakura entered the academy at age five, she had been training both her mental and physical spirit. Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei helped her to hone her aiming skills, encouraged flexibility, and increased her endurance. There had also been kata routines, which Sakura had always liked as she was good at memorization and the movements were fluid and enjoyable.

Deidara liked impact training. Repetitive impact. He emphasized strength and form _with force_. Wide-tooth smiley face force.

"On your knees, kouhai," he said some time later, after they had both ascended to the roof for morning exercises.

Sakura exhaled a shaky, "oh, thank you, finally" to no one in particular. She dropped from her unsupported sitting stance, one she had been struggling to hold for far too long, with very little grace to the floor. She crumpled into an awkward, half-collapsed arrangement that mildly resembled "child's position." Everywhere from her feet to her neck was tired and sore.

"Up, up, up," her sensei insisted, boot digging into her side with unnecessary provocation. Once she was properly kneeling before him, Deidara sunk into a low stance facing her and raised one of his hands. Each finger and the thumb were straightened. In a chopping motion, he dropped the hand until it smacked into her forehead.

Sakura clenched her eyes shut and tried not to make a sound. Despite there being no extra force to the hit other than what was offered from the natural falling motion, it was one of her least favourite training methods. It lasted for an hour. And it was worse than the hour of conditioning her arms and calves received.

Deidara switched to southpaw and back several times, and Sakura counted that he was careful to use each hand equally. She wondered who had taught him these things, considering he had never had an official teacher. The style was reminiscent of ones monks studied in remote temples high up in the mountains. Had he trained with monks? Had they perhaps been the original inhabitants of his mountain home? But then, where had they gone?

It was closer to zero-seven hundred hours by the time Deidara was satisfied with their progress and they had finally taken a seat to enjoy a nutrient bar and water from their canteens.

"Such a damned, depressed place, yeah," Deidara observed, looking over the cityscape. He smacked his lips noisily after another drink. "What's Konoha like?"

He liked to ask about Konoha. At first Sakura suspected it was for the sake of spying, so she had been careful in her descriptions, but Deidara never pushed for anything.

"We don't have very many cloudy days," she said, noticing the opposite was true of Keryiat for that morning. She was quickly learning that her sensei was not a fan of overcast weather. "And our seasons are kinda indistinct. I only remember a few really snowy days growing up. There was this one time when we'd actually gotten enough snow that the ground was completely covered, right? And I remember waking up in the middle of the night, there were a few lights on around, but the sky was this beautiful, soft purple colour. And the snow was just this stretch of pale slate grey. It was the middle of the night but I could see everything. A perfect world."

She took a sip from her own canteen, happy with the memory.

"Boooring," Deidara yawned. "No fun at all, yeah."

Sakura rolled her eyes, muttered, "you're impossible," and used the canteen as cover to look over at her Iwa sensei's profile. He was sun-gilded in the gray backdrop.

 _Ah_ – shoot, she'd been caught spying. She averted her gaze, catching a gleaming canine from his smile. No way he'd let her scrutiny pass without comment. Sakura turned the question back on Deidara before he could speak. "Anything to share about Iwa?"

He was going to answer, had something to say and meant to share it with her, but he couldn't. An explosion and the _BOM_ of its shock swallowed the words from his mouth. Sakura watched something start to form on his lips and then Deidara was pushing her to the ground, covering her. The initial quake was quickly followed by a vacuum, or the rushing of air, she didn't know which, and another, smaller _BOM._ Her ears vibrated from the noise, and she blinked as her vision righted itself.

The sky started pouring, but it wasn't rainwater, it was dust and pieces of earth falling in a thick sheet around them.

"What the hell was the that?" Sakura swore, peering over the shoulder above her. A new, much larger, column of smoke and dust rose above the rooftops to the east, blocking the little dot of sun trying to break through the smog of Keryiat. "An attack?"

"Come on, we're going to check it out, yeah," her sensei replied, pulling Sakura to her feet.

They both stared in the direction of the blast, where people were yelling and swarming like ants when the nest's been kicked. Some had been knocked from their feet where they stood next to an opening into the mine. The shaft belched out black smoke and confused miners. To her, it didn't immediately look awful. No flames, people were able to move around, no domino collapse of the ground. But still, had this happened a month ago, Sakura didn't think she would have wanted to run _in the direction of_ the explosion. She had never even had that morbid sense of curiosity over accidents, had always assumed someone else could be of greater help, had generally enjoyed the fact she seemed lucky enough to never be one directly involved in terrible things.

But _now_ wasn't a month ago, and she nodded before joining Deidara as he scaled over the edge of the roof and took off towards the commotion. They ran up and down walls, hopped over alleyways, vaulted over vents and water tanks; moving faster than she ever had before. Chakra hummed on her hands and feet, the relatively new feeling now almost as easy, natural, and familiar as her heartbeat. It just happened. And it helped bolster her resolve to investigate. Maybe she was someone who could help after all.

"What's happened?" Deidara barked as they dropped down into a vein of the quarry. There was a growing crowd of people standing in front of a mine shaft that was currently spewing an awful smelling brown, then grey, then finally black smoke.

An engineer answered, a hand thrown over her mouth as she stared at the mine. "Hit a pocket of combustible natural gas. The structure's compromised. Lost contact with the lower cells, no radio."

"How many people are down there?" Sakura asked the woman, directing her question over her shoulder as she rushed forward to help steer miners shuffling out from the shaft. Twenty, maybe thirty people?

"Three hundred? Three-fifty? Who are you two?" The engineer frowned, uncertain. And then to Deidara, who had snatched a bandanna from a miner to wrap around his nose and mouth, "what do you think you can do here?"

"I'm a shinobi," he said to her, a bit rudely. "And I can do pretty much anything."

Sakura shared the engineer's bewildered, mildly doubtful, expression. Feeling the need to set her sensei straight, "depending on the gas, but it's likely that cloth around your mouth won't do you much good."

A siren started overhead, breaking the air. Different from before, as Sakura suspected the sound was an alarm rather than a shift change announcement. The blaring stole the words from Deidara's mouth as he tried to respond. She moved to him and he met her in the middle, leaning down to yell into her ear. "Get a mask, wait at the entrance."

"What's your plan?" She yelled back, though the siren stopped halfway through the question.

Still right at her side, Deidara shrugged his shoulders. "Going under to stabilise the ground around the shaft."

"How will you know where to go?" No maps, no directions, and it wasn't exactly like he had a bloodline limit to give him x-ray vision. At least, she didn't think he did.

"Earth affinity," he replied off-handedly. "I'll need you to help move debris down in the shaft. I'll see if the tracks are still good, or if they're salvageable."

And then he slipped into the ground like water between a crack in the floorboards. Sakura blinked at the undisturbed dirt, then spun on the spot to find someone with a mask.

The siren began its second blaring. Sakura approached the engineer but was promptly shoved aside as more personnel arrived on the scene and more miners crawled out of the compromised shaft. Every person she approached brushed her off or completely overlooked her. Her confidence about being able to help began to wane. She couldn't do anything if no one was willing to take her seriously.

She was a twelve year old, yes, but damn it she was trained to subdue and kill people! She was someone to be taken seriously...in training.

Sakura dropped her hand as another person shook off her questions. Why didn't she have the charismatic authority that her Iwa-sensei innately possessed?

"My sensei is counting on me, yeah, I need a damn mask! I'm a kunoichi for kami's sake." She yelled to anyone within earshot, stomping a foot and completely looking the picture of a child on the verge of a tantrum. Amazingly, this appeared to sway absolutely no one to her cause.

But she did finally spot a person carrying masks to the scene. The company's, or maybe it was the town's – the two entities ran together in her mind – but whichever it was, their emergency response team had finally arrived. And with them came the appropriate equipment for the situation. Sakura debated trying her luck pushing authority with the new team, but rolled her eyes and accepted that they would be just as dismissive of a stranger claiming to be a ninja and demanding their stuff for "reasons."

So Sakura did the most shinobi-inspired thing of all and swiped a mask while people around her ignored her.

"Hey!" She heard someone yell as she ran into the mine shaft. It could have been directed at her. Maybe it was going to be followed with a lecture about how she wasn't really suited for this emergency, that a kid should stand aside in this instance, but she was too fast for the words to reach her. Throwing back over her shoulder, "thank you! I'll bring it back, promise!"

She snapped the mask into place, needing to tie an impromptu knot when the straps didn't have a built-in option that would secure it tight enough around her head, as if inexplicably it wasn't made to fit the head of a (nearly) teenage girl, and charged into the smoke.

Sakura pushed past a steady throng of dishevelled, disorientated, coughing miners and bumped into Deidara.

"There you are!" He called to her, another siren round having started.

"Where to?" She asked, voice muffled by the mask. They really should invest in earpieces after this, she mused somewhere in between the chaos. Perhaps a jutsu to accommodate poor conversation environments?

Deidara understood her anyway and waved an arm for her to follow. They went into a descending vein deeper into the mine.

"The pocket that combusted came from down here. I'm still checking on other areas, but it seems this route has so far taken most of the damage. I've got other clones out fixing the track lines so that the incapacitated can get out in the carts. For now, the elevators are being operated by hand. We can't run the electrical lines until I'm sure there's not been any flooding, yeah."

"Can't you use a jutsu to make stairs in the shaft walls for the miners to use?" He'd done something similar, making rock outcrops on the first day she'd met him.

"Not sure if it's safe yet, yeah." They arrived at an elevator lift, where a line of people were yanking the metal cords to raise the lift. Deidara joined them, effectively increasing their strength and speed double. To Sakura, "when the lift is up, slip under it. You'll be faster on your own. Meet me at the bottom. There's a blockage people are trapped behind."

She nodded. One of the miners took off his helmet and tossed it to her, and she plucked it from the air.

"The light," was all he said in explanation. And Sakura nodded once more in thanks, and she put it on as well. Apparently the anonymity of a mask made people more inclined to trust her, which she didn't quite understand, but thought it was because her age was less obvious.

The lift arrived, full to the brim with dusty, moaning faces, and it was locked into place so that hands were available to help off those who needed it.

"Clear the door, yeah," Deidara was directing. In the centre of the lift platform was a door that opened to its underside. He picked its lock and swung it open, putting an arm against her as hot black smoke blossomed out from it. He didn't give her much more time to acclimate, however. "Let's go!"

 _Us_ when really it was just _her_. Sakura clicked on the helmet light and hovered at the edge of the door. Mostly just impenetrable smoke, no way to tell where the bottom was. She wanted to ask how far the drop would be, but didn't want to really know the answer. She became very aware of her own heartbeat and how it rocked in her chest. It wanted out, but Sakura swung herself through the opening and entered the darkness.

The thought hit her, running the underside of the lift to the rock wall, that she might very well die in the mine. She was charging head first to a place, in her humble opinion, no human should rightly be. The pressure of the earth intensified around her, and if it wasn't for the mask around her face and its twenty minute oxygen supply, she might have panicked herself into passing out.

A stuffy, hot black drop; nothing but the little bulb of her headlight to shine the way and her hands and feet to guide her.

But there were people trapped in the darkness who didn't have chakra and jutsu to rely on in such a dire situation. Sakura did. It would be shameful – no, unthinkable – for her to chicken out of helping them just because she couldn't face the very things that made up their daily lives. What was a little darkness, a little hole in the ground to a shinobi anyhow?

Fear didn't have a say in her job, she decided. It could go sit in the corner until she had done what needed to be done.

Which was very brave of her to say to herself, even though she sighed with great relief when she reached the bottom of the elevator shaft and found herself once again in the presence of other people. The smoke was thick, but thin enough in waves for her to see at times. The people she had joined were miserable, confused, anxious, and still she felt a little bit better for their company. (Though one man positively shrieked at her sudden appearance and it did crush her confidence a bit.)

"She's with me," she heard. Her sensei. Deidara was some distance away, down a split in the tunnel, but he must have spotted her where he stood on a pile of rubble. From between the rubble the smoke escaped. Sakura quickly made her way to his side. His tan skin was smudged with dirt and dust, but there was a sheen of fresh perspiration that flickered under the illumination of many headlights and battery operated lanterns. It was hot and the fear that had chilled her descent was quickly abated.

Deidara sounded tired, she thought, as he addressed her. "Nice you've joined us. Lovely day, yeah."

"Indeed," she remarked, matching his dry observation. She raised an eyebrow at the wall he was attempting to shift, along with the few remaining able-bodied miners. Feeling a heavy weight settle in her stomach, she thought that the four tons of rock she had moved out of the pit was a mere speck of sand compared to the pile of rocks in the mine. Worriedly, "will we be able to move all this by hand?"

And just where to should they be moving the rubble?

"What?" Deidara asked. Then he nodded in the direction of a small alcove in the tunnels. Machinery she couldn't name sat tucked away and safe under the lip in the wall. "You don't need the tank, yeah. They've got filters here."

"I've got oxygen here, anyone need it?" Sakura asked, swinging the small tank above her head. She handed it off to someone who was better suited for figuring out what to do with that sort of thing.

For the moment, she couldn't help the wounded or suffering, but she could help her shinobi sensei get to those trapped behind the rock fall. The strain and fatigue from moving the debris normally could be lessened by gripping the rocks with chakra, which Sakura had just so happened to have mastered recently, and she didn't waste a minute starting. Deidara used his earth affinity jutsu to reinforce the walls as she and other miners cleared the tunnel.

The air in the mine was like a damp flame, one that was clingy and putrid smelling, and Sakura's hair kept suctioning onto her skin in inconvenient places. She couldn't remember ever having been so focused. People around her changed faces, someone gave her a canteen, her mask filters were replaced. Her clothes were quickly stripped down to her chest binder and pants. The rocks remained numerous and the smoke unceasing. She had to pee into a makeshift latrine but the smell from the demands of nature were lost in the smell of mask filters and other awful smelling things. After a while, despite her training in the desert, her body became fatigued and her muscles ached. Sakura ignored it.

Something cool touched her arm as she bent over the rubble. A water bottle, not chilled, but not yet mellowed to the hot air of the shaft. Deidara was holding it out for her. "You've been down here for twelve hours, Sprout. Time for a break."

"I can keep going," she insisted, even though she was hungry and tired. Taking the proffered bottle, she turned away.

"Then at least take this, yeah," Deidara spun her around by shoulder and pushed something into her hands. A small round ball.

Sakura recognised the soldier pill. For a moment she hesitated. It was one thing to take a soldier in a platoon from Konoha, but were they very different in Iwa? She decided she didn't care and lifted her mask to pop the thing into her mouth. Within the next fifteen days, it was merely the first of many.

They went from finding survivors to finding bodies. She tried to ignore the pieces they came across in the piles of the collapse, but then she saw enough so that she didn't need to look away any more. Maybe it was from her time at the academy, where her instructors taught children the weakest and strongest points of the body, but Sakura found that she was oddly talented on discerning which parts had come from where, the exception being when they mostly resembled pulp. There was some amount of that in the rocks.

It quickly got to the point when it was obvious the last of the living were out and Sakura remained in the mines for the sake of recovering those who had perished. Once again, Deidara was pressing a water canteen into her hands.

"We should head up now," he told her. _We_ because, as a sensei, he'd never let her spend a bit of rest alone. But it had meant she'd been forced to operate at his stamina level – not an easy thing, really, hence the soldier pills. She'd yet to see him take one.

But in her time down the mine, Sakura had grown attached to the people who worked there. The people and children who _had_ worked there and now might be left to _stay_ there. She tugged away from him. "I'm fine. Matsuyochi, Kamio, Nakahara and Owada are still here."

Deidara reminded her they had recovery teams for Matsuyochi, Kamio, Nakahara and Owada.

Sakura reminded him that they had inserted themselves into other teams all the same, why was it any different now that Matsuyochi, Kamio, Nakahara and Owada were dead? Tootsie-sama and his worries over unrest could stuff it. Besides, weren't the workers clearly right? Look around. Sakura was already busy. And couldn't Deidara just piss off she was working here and would he stop making the ground swivel like that, what was it, some sort of jutsu?

And that was when he knocked her out with a calculated strike to the back of her head.

She came to on the way up the mine, draped over her sensei's back. She was confused at first, not sure where she was, what that square of light was, but then she was lulled back to sleep with the warmth beneath her and the caress of fresh air on her mask-free face.

She slept for three days straight. Woke up for a few hours, then fell asleep for another day.

Her hearing came back first when she woke up.

"Hey, Sprout. _Spro-out_ , wake up."

Sakura made out the words, but there was something else. A loud noise, like a ringing whine coming and going. An alarm a little ways away. Her sense of feeling returned, too; she was sleeping on a hard surface of some sort, something soft and warm on top of her, and a cushion under her head. She remembered the mine shaft and what she had been working towards down there. How Deidara had come and, to put it accurately and bluntly, retrieved her.

Opening her eyes – her sensei again, hovering over her sleeping mat in one of the temporary tents set up for the recovery teams. It was evening time and the air was cool and damp. Deidara's hair looked more golden than usual in the glow of the tents lighting. The rest of him was smudges of dirt and shadow.

But what was with that ringing sound? Were her ears damaged? The sirens hadn't sounded since that first morning of the explosions. She frowned up at Deidara, confused.

"Missions been cancelled, yeah," Deidara said in response to the frown. And feeling this might have been inadequate, he added, "the main vein was structurally compromised it turns out. Operations've been halted, yeah."

Pushing herself upright at the news, Sakura almost knocked into Deidara in her haste. "The whole mine? For how long? How could – how could this happen? How would we not have known for this long?"

Deidara watched as she threw off her meagre bedding and attempted to sort out her clothing and holsters, hands shaking so that she fumbled more than any hardened ninja should. Finally he put his hands on hers and stopped her. "There's no rush, we're not staying. _Mission_ _cancelled_. Mean anything?"

"But if the whole mine is bad there's probably a lot to do! People are probably at risk, maybe even the whole structure of the town itself!"

"It's not like that. The town'll be fine for now, yeah."

Maybe it was from the way he said it, or the way his eyes didn't meet hers when he spoke that made Sakura pause. Instinctively, the thought crossed her mind, _what did you do?_

But she didn't say anything. She swallowed her question and followed her Iwa sensei's lead out of Keryiat. They weren't alone either, already throngs of out-of-work miners were taking to the trail with them, some in battered old transport, much more on foot. After her fortnight working alongside them and burdened down now with her own doubts, Sakura felt she blended right in with the procession of ash.

O O O


	5. Down to the River

 

O O O

_Gonna Wash Me Clean_

O O O

 

Eventually, Sakura and Deidara broke away from the grey procession of displaced Keryiat miners to find a place to rest.

They hadn't looked like shinobi as they had trudged along with workers. Both had put away their wraps and hitai-ate, let their shoulders slouch a little with weariness, didn't react strongly to anything in particular, didn't say very much at all. Which is the purpose of a shinobi, really, to blend in while in direct sight. They each pulled it off brilliantly, but after a little while it just so happened that they had their own direction to go.

"What will they do now?" Sakura asked that night. She was poking at the dehydrated food slowly soaking up water from the pot over their camp fire. Ramen. It reminded her suddenly of Uzumaki Naruto, the bumbling, orphan prankster with a chip on his shoulder and that ridiculous, painfully hopeful dream to become Hokage. She felt a pang in her chest, missing him though she would never admit it aloud. He had always relentlessly chased after her no matter how insistently she had told him to stop. Must just be what nostalgia and homesickness does to a person, she thought.

But she didn't want to feel homesick, so she asked her sensei about the people from Keryiat.

Deidara was stretched out on his stomach across the flames from her. He had dropped his henge and was back to his regular golden-blond haired head. She had seen it on rare occasion during the time they spent in town, as he had only been allowed to drop it when in private. If she were honest with herself, she thought it suited him better than the black hair. Blond hair just went well with some people. Like Ino. Or Naruto, for instance.

Ah shoot, she was stuck on Konoha again. But how was that Number One Drop Out doing anyhow? Was he fitting in with Sasuke and the exchange student? Who was their sensei anyway? Was he or she anything like the sensei Sakura had in Iwa? What were they doing? Rescuing people? Training? How were they?

"It's not like they're gonna _die_ or anything."

Sakura looked up from the noodles in her camp bowl, alarmed. Deidara had been the one to speak – oh, but he was talking about the workers. Not Naruto and Sasuke.

Her sensei continued, "why so worried, yeah? They're better off now than they were in those mines. You saw it, yeah, that was a place where people go and only get used up and die. Same cycle every day and week. So dull, total waste."

"But what will they do now? At least they had some form of living there," Sakura murmured, but Deidara's voice was getting louder and rougher as he talked.

"And what's it to us, anyway? You should be happy for them. They've got a chance for a fresh start. To really _do_ something. They should be thankful, yeah."

There it was again; something he said that made her stomach twist the tiniest bit. She wondered, in what way could she imagine they would be thankful? "But without work, they've got nowhere to go and nothing to sustain themselves on..."

"Sprout, yeah, don't think about it too much." He laughed a moment later, sounding somewhat chagrined and more than a little forced. He switched from laying on his stomach to his back, and tucked his arms behind his head as he stared up at the night sky. Not much of a view with the clouds obfuscating the waxing moon. "Besides, we did our mission. Think about it – no more labour dispute now, yeah?"

It wasn't too reassuring.

As they continued travelling, Sakura didn't shake her thoughts, but she no longer broached the topic with her sensei. He was all too keen to avoid it. She thought it was probably the mature ninja thing to do, to move on and not dwell on things she couldn't affect in any way. Except, there was a small part of her that wondered if Deidara could have been able to affect Keryiat after all. Sakura couldn't help thinking – he'd done _something_. Something, she was sure, that he would never admit to her. And this thought made her wallowing all the more impossible for said man to ignore.

On their third day back, she stumbled as they bushwhacked a path through the low-lying, unmanageable vegetation. They were coming down the southern side of a mountain, it was late in the afternoon and a thousand degrees. She still didn't _like_ this type of environment, no matter how used to it she should have been by that point. It was too exhausting to get used to in any way. Drained the energy right out of her, clawed at her. Literally.

She swore and angrily dug out the thorny culprit that had snatched at her sandal. Bending over, her hair got caught in something equally thorny, as did her loose clothing, and then it seemed like everything around her was trying to scratch out and tear her down. A kunai was in her hand in a second and she felt her chest tighten with mounting anger and frustration and screw desert plants in the first place she'd hack them all to pieces –

Deidara wrapped his fingers around her grip on the weapon, his skin pleasantly cool and apparently unconcerned with the hot atmosphere. Sakura's mood simmered and calmed.

"You okay?" Her sensei asked, coolly. In many ways, he had been exceedingly cool in the past few days. As in his temper had mellowed and he hadn't cracked a smile or a joke since their first night at the camp fire. That _something_ was troubling him, too, she suspected, but he'd yet to hit the kill-plants-in-a-senseless-fury tipping point.

He pulled the thorns free for her, and regaining her composure, she was able to disentangle herself. For a moment they both stood and breathed, contemplating silently under the ringing of the high sun and constant buzz of insect life.

Sakura thought about the mineshaft and how her ears had rung down in their depths too. How sometimes she could have sworn she could hear a survivor from under the rubble but she'd never found one. She thought she heard them at night when she was so very far away from where their whispers should have been able to reach her. Out in the open desert, her eyes were stinging and she felt a bead of perspiration lick down her cheek. Deidara wiped it from her skin as she stared off across the glaring landscape.

"Let's go there, then," Deidara said with finality.

The words didn't register immediately, but Sakura lifted an eyebrow at him in question when they did. She looked around them, seeing nothing that resembled any sort of destination. "Where? Don't we already have somewhere to be?"

Deidara jerked his shoulder, dismissing the obligation as he looked away. "That can wait. You okay now?"

She didn't know how to answer, but her silence seemed enough for him.

"Just follow me, yeah?" Deidara checked her over but didn't show if he had found anything in particular. His fingers were calloused and gentle, swiping more at the dust on her cheek, careful and slow, and then he turned away and started walking.

The next morning, Sakura still didn't know their destination. As distracted as she was by things she had yet to fully process, she was intrigued by their mysterious detour. Deidara was being very evasive, but at least he seemed to be in a more jovial mood, happily dancing around answering her questions and giving self-satisfied little smirks to himself when he knew she was watching him.

Without much effort, almost peripherally, he brightened her mood a little as well.

That afternoon, the trail they had been taking joined a larger path. Traffic around them picked up and they went through a village and had some time to restock supplies. Sakura stared pointedly at the public bath house and at any restaurant they passed, but Deidara equally as determinedly pretended not to notice.

"So I'm guessing that _this_ is not _there_ , right?" She asked as they walked through the market, looking to pick up a replacement pump for their backup water filter. Deidara, who had been furtively looking at a cooking apron with a cutesy pattern on it, shook his head and studied a set of attractively designed teacups.

"We're closer, now, yeah. It's close."

They left the town as silently as they had entered, moving in steps that felt automated and stiff, but a sign on the road made her stop suddenly. She read the words and didn't dare hope that maybe – could they be? Her heart fluttered against her better judgement. Very sweetly, as softly and politely as she could, she said, " _please_...tell me that's where we're going?"

Deidara hadn't noticed the sign when she did, but he stopped and stared at it with pouting lines of resentment. He cursed it, "wanted it to be a surprise, yeah..."

 _Hot springs and inn_. Sakura felt like crumpling up in relief and gratitude, and she was overcome with an urge to throw her arms around him. She refrained, a part of her expecting Deidara to attach an ulterior motive to the trip and another part telling her that her mission expenses shouldn't cover such a thing.

Right. Money. Her shoulders, heavy with travel luggage and equipment, and now with disappointment, rolled into a slump. Wanting to stomp her foot moodily and yet lacking the energy, she whispered, "I'll...I don't think I can afford it."

Deidara wasn't concerned. "What kind of genin could? I'm your _jounin_ sensei, yeah, this is my tr – well, you're lucky enough to be accompanying me when I want to go, yeah, so that's how it is. It's just a night, besides."

Genuinely, without thought, she smiled as she watched Deidara's face turn pink under the smudges of dirt and grime. A thought occurred to her. _Shit, I look just the same, don't I?_ Covered head to toe in dirt and the grime, and the sweat and the slimy skim of pollution hanging on her. She'd been lucky to take sponge baths in Keryiat, but during most days there had not been opportunity. And she'd not washed her hair since dying it brunette. Thinking more on it, she hadn't actually seen herself in two weeks.

It occurred to her that they probably smelled worse than they looked, too. Her smile faltered.

"We can't...you know, go up there. Not looking like this." She plucked at the well worn, threadbare clothing she had on, then waved a hand around her face. N _ot like this, see?_

"So? We have money. Businesses care about money."

"Yeah, well, they also care about their reputation. And besides! _I'm_ embarrassed about how I look. I can't go in there looking this way! Like I've just come from –"

"From where, yeah? A mining accident where you saved people's lives?"

She hadn't saved any lives, though, she wanted to say. Sakura hadn't personally pulled anyone living out of the destruction. Deidara had done most of that within the first two days. Her biggest contribution was finding pieces to identify. She didn't mention that fact, though. "It's not like anyone in there will know that."

" _Who_ won't?" He was frowning and being difficult, arms crossed over his chest and his stance lopsided in that way he sometimes liked to stand, declaring with posture a rebellious, stubborn attitude.

Waving her hands again, heavenward and in exasperation this time. "The people! I don't know."

"Who cares what they think? Probably can't appreciate a good thing when they see it, yeah."

Sakura had a retort ready – that impressions mattered, damn it – but it was lost when Deidara grabbed her and pulled her into his chest. Pressing her against him soundly and suddenly so that she couldn't say anything at all. And then she had the strangest sensation ever, sort of like how a cork must feel coming out of a bottle top. Pressure, pressure, easing then – _BOP_. It lasted maybe a second; she'd barely had time to recognise it was happening and it was over. And then she was a bit dizzy and disorientated.

Completely confused, she breathed, "...the hell..."

There was smoke – no, a cloud – around them. Deidara released her and she stepped back to realise they were standing in a new place. It was unfamiliar to her, but she could guess easily enough where they were; in the inn's lobby. He had used a ninjutsu to move them there. Her first time experiencing such a thing over such a distance.

Deidara held her from him, giving her a raised eyebrow at her confusion. "We're going to get to more ninjutsu next, yeah."

While she stood, befuddled, where he'd placed her, Deidara walked smoothly up to the attendant and told him they would need a room for the night along with usage of the onsen. The man was as taken aback as Sakura by their sudden appearance, but recovered much more quickly. After the transaction, Sakura could hear him murmuring about 'lousy ninjas' and 'no respect for pre-existing heart conditions.'

Deidara waved a brochure at her as they walked to their room and listed off the baths he enjoyed most. Apparently, he was familiar with the place. She absently followed everything he was saying, but all she could really think of was dropping her pack and going to any bath of any type and size as long as she could just wash her hair and body.

Their room was small, but tidy and comfortable. They both unceremoniously dropped their things near the doorway and stood admiring the furnishings; a relaxing ocean palette, thick curtains to block any troublesome light, a sweet and near overwhelming smell of detergent, a desk and sitting chairs. Even a television set across from the room's bed - which had a real frame and a real mattress and a dozen odd pillows in a smattering of plush and smooth textures.

Sakura smiled contentedly at the bed. Then frowned. Something was off. "Wait – one bed?"

"It's large enough for two to sleep on, yeah," Deidara shrugged in reply. Unconcerned, he knelt down to his things and started unpacking. "There's a laundry service here, by the way. Not that that's a hint or anything, yeah..."

Choosing to come back to that later, she gestured to the more important bed issue. Was he missing this? "It doesn't matter how big it is. It's the principle of the thing! You're my sensei _AND_ you're a _boy_. I can't share a – a _bed_ with you."

"We slept back to back on our mats at Keryiat. What's the difference?"

They had. Almost every time she had slept in the mining town he'd been right beside her. She had rationalized it as a way of protection for both of them from Tsuji's thugs (just in case they had ever decided they were tired of the makeshift shinobi rescue squad instead of the covert intelligence agents they had meant to hire).

"It's not the same thing. That was during a mission and it's not like we shared the –" Sakura gave the room a quick glance, then lowered her voice to whisper, scandalised, "– the _covers._ "

Deidara stilled his hands and after a long moment huffed. The look her sensei gave her was flat. "Fine. You take the bed then, yeah."

He spoke with some reserve and she thought maybe he was masking annoyance. He didn't say where he'd sleep. Sakura fidgeted a little as he looked her over. Tonelessly, he said, "as for the baths, I'm leaving first."

He used the attached wash room to change and left without another word. Sakura bit the inside of her bottom lip and stared at the door as her sensei shut it behind him. Was he mad at her? What had she said that was wrong?

Organizing her own things, she dismissed his hasty exit and thought about her own choice in hot springs.

Because she had been lonely for the past few weeks, she decided on the largest and most popular one. It was the right choice, she thought entering the spacious room next to the bath. The room buzzed with happy voices, laughter, the light conversations of camaraderie. Sakura found a corner and a tap to herself where she could rinse off without attracting too much attention. Despite the steady stream of dye coming from her hair (mildly embarrassing no matter how thankful she was to Deidara for not putting something permanent on it), she needn't have worried too much. She wasn't the one drawing looks, there was already someone else who was demanding most of the eyes and ears of the women in the baths.

Rather, a pair of people and what looked like a pet pig.

And that was where Sakura first met Lady Tsunade of the Legendary Sannin, but she didn't know it at the time and wouldn't for another six months yet.

O O O

Sakura felt lighter on her feet than she had in weeks, she hummed and nearly danced her way back to the room. She'd just had a lovely time in a very lovely onsen with a lovely pair of women who had within an hour become like mentors to her.

At one point, the young blonde-haired woman of the trio had stopped in her tirade against debt collectors to stare very pointedly at Sakura's newly revealed pink hair. The same hand holding a bottle of sake (which Sakura suspected was definitely not allowed in the baths), the woman had pointed to said locks of hair.

"Funny, I once knew a man with the very same colouring." Giving Sakura a once over, she smiled. She would later introduce herself as 'Tsun-chan.' "Where are you from?"

As it happened, Sakura learned the three were fellows from Konoha and one was even a shinobi (her name was Shizune and she was a medic-nin). They had never heard of the Exchange Programme and their conversation had been easy and fun. They had talked about the Third and what had been going on in the city since the two women had started their travels. Sakura had talked some about her classmates (mainly her rivalry with Ino), her qualifications for the exchange, and then she'd gotten into her time with her Iwa-sensei. Neither of the women had ever heard of Deidara no Iwa, though, so Sakura had taken some time to talk about him.

In the end, they had all agreed he had an ego problem, even though Sakura rather thought he handled most things very well.

Which she promptly reconsidered upon entering their shared room to find Deidara wrestling with a hair dryer on the floor. He cursed vehemently while trying to yank free a good amount of his hair that was caught in the back of the dryer's fan. It was testament to his ire with the thing that he hadn't heard her enter.

"Sen...sei...?" Sakura brought a hand to her mouth, wanting to laugh, but picking up on the murderous intent in Deidara's posture she managed to quell it.

At her voice, he froze, took a silent moment to right himself, and with his back to her, simply said, "shit."

"Let me see how bad it is," she said quietly, keeping her tone humourless and gentle. Sakura shut the door and went to sit on the floor behind Deidara. She noted how they had both chosen the same colour set of clothes (a shirt and shorts combination) offered by the establishment for guests. Did that often happen – when two people were in each other's company enough, they started to mirror one another? Had it trickled into their lives in other ways yet? Thank the Will of Fire she hadn't yet picked up his manner of saying 'yeah' every other sentence.

"Damn thing is piece of shi–"

"Deidara!"

"Well look what it did, yeah!"

"You must have been doing something wrong."

Either that or he had been extremely distracted in his thoughts.

He was indignant at her suggestion. "Do something wrong? How could I possibly, year? I didn't – ouch – don't pull at it!"

Sakura huffed and stared at the nest of hair caught up in the wire mesh and metal innards of the hair dryer. The situation was grim. Carefully, "Deidara...I think..."

"Don't say it, Sprout. Yeah, don't say it."

"...You're going to have to cut it."

Deidara spun in his seat, snatching both the dryer and his hair out of her grasp. Eyes wide and forehead lined with affronted shock, "are you out of your mind, Haruno?"

"Am _I_ out of _my_ mind? You're the one who got his hair stuck in that thing in the first place! How did you even manage to get, like, _half_ your hair knotted up in there?"

"I was thinking about stuff, yeah. Things. And it's not half my hair." He stood up and stomped his way to the wash room and she heard him shuffling as he twisted about trying to see the damage in the mirror. For a good while he said nothing but hissed sometimes when she thought he was trying to free some of the mess.

Sakura took the time to towel dry and comb out her own namesake locks.

Deidara reappeared and this time, very purposefully, walked smoothly to his pack to take out his kunai holster.

"Wait!" Sakura nearly shouted, not ready yet to see his hair cut off in such a crude way. "I have scissors –"

Too late.

Sakura felt a dull throb in her chest as Deidara's long, beautiful (though she didn't love to admit it) hair fell as he sliced. First one section to free the dryer, then everything else to even out the length. It was roughly falling at his jaw line now, and shorter in the back. "Would you like me to –"

"I'm going to find someone who can sort this out," Deidara said before Sakura could finish her offer. She nodded her head as he gathered up hair and dryer from the floor. He was yanking out the pieces stuck in the fan when he left the room.

"Someone's pissed about something, yeah," Sakura said to herself, wondering which of the many things Deidara had dealt with lately had been the one to set him off. Not that she wanted to think about His Moodiness, so she busied herself with sharpening and oiling her weapons. And when it so happened Deidara still hadn't returned when she finished, she did the same for his kunai and shuriken. She ate a very postponed lunch. Did a load in the wash. Tried to watch an Iwa drama she had never seen before, found the storyline a little dull and picked up a book instead. Got bored with her book. Did some exercises from her school workbooks (all too easy).

The sun had set and Deidara hadn't returned.

Sakura thought he was probably somewhere sulking over his unexpected haircut. Or maybe he was like her and in his moments alone he was thinking about the mines. She should have been more prepared to leave Keryiat with these sort of thoughts, especially with the way he had been on their trip in. But if she didn't think about Keyiat, then it was Konoha. And neither was all too appealing.

 _Uugh_ , how she missed training.

She kind of missed Deidara, too. The way they had barely been talking the past few days was strange. She missed their easy atmosphere from before. Neither one had done much to help the whole _snafu_ situation, but she didn't think she could last like this much longer. She was typically an energetic, optimistic, sociable person. But then...she didn't have the best history for strong friendships. Her last best friend was the one person Sakura had sworn to be her rival.

Ah. Maybe not the best move, in retrospect. And for what? What had she gained from that when compared to all that she had lost?

She missed Ino. She missed having someone to talk to – made very apparent by the fact she had spilled classified information to strangers at a foreign hot springs (even though they had been so friendly). Ah. Shoot.

Sakura sat on the bed and considered how her closest contact was her Iwa sensei. And they were barely talking. And she had taken the bed from him, too. And he had just lopped off his hair out of frustration. And now he was nowhere to be seen. Sometime around midnight she came to a conclusion; a drastic measure to patch up their tepid relationship. Well, not _relationship_ , she reminded herself. Not that she meant it like that.

Drastic measure completed, Sakura got into bed for the night. There was a note on the other side saying Deidara was welcome to it.

She barely slept. Five hours of tossing and turning and no sign of her sensei. She started out nervous, then got worried, then angry, and then worried again. What was he doing? Sleeping in the baths?

Sakura slipped on her training gi and sandals, telling herself she was merely going out to burn some excess energy and _not_ to look around for Deidara. She slid the door open and peered down the hallway, this way and that – only she bumped her nose into something on the 'that.' Looking up, it was the exact person she had been missing - _ah_ \- who had been missing.

Immediately she smelled alcohol. Deidara leaned into the door frame next to her and sighed. "Up for training, yeah?"

Sakura ignored his slurred words. Acting to be none-the-wiser, she asked, "are you just now getting in? And...are you..."

"Yes and yes, yeah." Deidara laughed. "And also for your next question, _also_ yes."

Next question? Sakura narrowed her eyes and scrutinized the man (damnit, _boy_ ) in front of her. All that she could see was his relaxed posture, mussed hair, ruffled clothing, some light bruising around his neck and oh – " _Oh._ "

She blushed as he raised his eyebrows over his shining, ever-pleased eyes.

But then Deidara's lackadaisical gaze focused on something and his hand reached out to pet at the hair curling around the side of her face. Her heart skipped a beat – oh, right, she had done that, hadn't she? Deidara's smile widened.

"Did you cut your hair for me, Sprout?"

Her cheeks felt even hotter. _NO_. Of course not. Why would she? She didn't do it out of some stupid wish for rekindling solidarity. Clearing her throat, she said, "it looked like less maintenance. So...that's all."

Deidara's thumb and index finger found a strand of pink to wrap themselves in and then his fingers were drawing down her jaw. A warm, light touch. "Looks cute, yeah."

He leaned forward and Sakura felt rooted to the ground. Inadvertently, she tipped her chin up just the tiniest bit. Then Deidara was circling around her, withdrawing his hand, and slinking into the room. Over his shoulder, "if you're training, yeah, I'll take the bed for a few hours. You know the drills."

Not very well rested at all, but a million miles from tired, Sakura just nodded her head and drifted away down the hall. She could use some fresh air. And then maybe another trip to the onsen to drown herself for thinking about kissing him.

O O O


	6. Feet Like Lead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gadd. I have missed these two so much!

 

O O O

_I searched for your reasons but found mine instead_

O O O

 

Sakura didn't know how to summarise her time with Deidara.

On one hand, it was awful and she couldn't sleep well unless she was pushed to physical exhaustion. On the other hand, it wasn't so much Deidara who was responsible for the night terrors, rather he was the one who pushed her to her limits every day so that she could get rest at night. But would she have been exposed to so much death if she had stayed in Konoha? She was pretty certain genin only went on missions that involved carrying groceries for grannies and such. Had any of her classmates passed their days in the way that she had?

Did Naruto know the smell of burning and decay?

She hoped not. He had too great a spirit to be broken by such things.

Why did they even become ninja in the first place? What was she doing in this profession? She was just a kid, though thirteen was inching closer and that did hold some authority to it, she thought.

There were kids younger than her dealing with worse things. At least in her profession, she could become a strong enough person to help them. That was what she needed to keep telling herself; she had seen destruction and death up close and she had come away standing. Maybe she was just the type of person who would shoulder these things so others wouldn't have to.

To think she had gone to the academy with the sole purpose of pursuing Uchiha Sasuke and maybe showing up Ino. But now, as a genin, what was she really going to do with herself?

"Plus, I can teach you how to make home-made fireworks, so it's a win-win," Deidara nearly sang, interrupting Sakura's internal monologue.

It was just under three months after the start of the exchange and another fortnight had gone by since their return from Keryiat. Most of those two weeks had been spent in the forest below Deidara's home, where the two trained with various weapons. Although he had mentioned something about working on jutsu, Deidara dedicated the morning and afternoon hours to her basic fighting skills as, in his humble opinion, they were in greater need.

They had started practising with dummies. Repeated strikes, over and over again. She was meant to go slowly, working on form, but familiarity eased the routine after a few days. And so Deidara compensated by adding weights.

Sakura had finally gotten too used to his unorthodox methods to protest very much.

At the moment, Deidara had them doing pull ups. It was a little after sunrise and she had already done her morning run through the forest canopy, horse stance chops, vertically suspended sit ups, and katas. Now it was time to drag up not only her own body weight but the additional iron sand her sensei had put on her back that morning. And next up she still had jumps to do. And today wasn't even leg day.

"But before explosives, yeah, which I can't wait to get to by the way, you need more work with your kunai throws. More complicated target arrangements. And I'm thinking I have a new technique, yeah, for honing your chakra control tonight, yeah. Maybe build up your, uh, _modest_ supply, yeah."

He always said so many 'yeahs' when he was excited. Not for the first time, she smiled at the habit. Quickly followed by a frown as she crested another pull up. "What do you mean, _modest_? Is that your delicate way of saying I have a crap supply of chakra? Well excuse me for not being a powerhouse, _yeah_. You _know_ my parents aren't shinobi."

"That never stopped me," Deidara said happily, and a month ago she wouldn't have been able to appreciate his subtle change of cadence. Under the proud, casual façade, there was a hint of resentment.

He hadn't been born with any gifts, either, she remembered. He'd had to make himself what he was now. When he pushed her, it was because he wanted to make something of her as well.

Sakura blushed, only saved by the exertion of pull ups. But there was something she admired in him, if not at all his sadistic training exercises. But at least he was training her. With the minimal supervision the two had, she supposed it would have been an attractive option for him to just let her stew without any teaching at all. And it was useful teaching, too.

"Shit," she heard Deidara breathe. A second later he was gone from her peripheral vision and there were sharp clinks of metal connecting with metal, the thuds of several weighty things hitting the ground. Sakura's brain registered the noise, knew it, and she dropped to ground into a roll and up again into a defensive fighting position. She was by Deidara's side when a group of three ninja dropped to the forest floor in front of them.

Iwa nin; a girl and two boys, all of them looking to be around Deidara's age. The boys each had the same golden brown skin and light blonde hair, could have been brothers or some other relation, and the girl in the middle was fair skinned and dark haired. It was the girl, with her easy smirk and sharp eyes, that spoke.

"Deidara-senpai, nice haircut. What happened? Turn your head and confuse that longass ponytail of yours for an enemy?"

"What you do you want, Touketsuchi- _chan_?" Deidara dropped his fighting stance and turned back to doing pull ups. Busying himself, he murmured to her over his shoulder, "run out of farm animals to wake with that shrill rooster voice of yours?"

"Apparently I was able to find two more," the girl, Touketsuchi, replied.

This earned a very dramatic twitch from Deidara, easy to notice as he hitched in his pull ups.

The girl continued, not missing a beat, "how's the dud then, yeah?"

Sakura refrained from rolling her eyes, guessing she was the aforementioned "dud." So these two definitely hated each other. She had honestly started to forget the petty quarrels of teenagers over the past few months. She watched the three new nin cautiously. Why couldn't it have been the man from her trip to Iwa that had escorted them in? What had he called himself? The Shining Sheep of Iwa? Why hadn't it been him that had come for a visit? He had seemed all right. This trio, however...

Deidara had a very exasperated expression as he dropped to the ground. Swivelling back to the girl, he had already masked it. "What can I do for the _favoured_ granddaughter of the Tsuchikage, yeah?"

Touketsuchi's smirk faltered to glowering. "It's nice to know you can at least appreciate who your superiors are, yeah."

Nerves! Nerves everywhere were being hit. Sakura wished she had a better idea of what was going on, feeling like a wide-eyed toad watching two snakes battle it out. She was thankful Deidara and her had grown out of the bantering stage of their relationship – at least so that there was no maliciousness behind it any more (she thought). Unlike what was happening between the two in front of her.

"Fuckin' nepotism," she heard her sensei mumble. Then, "out with it, yeah."

The smirk returned. "We're doing our mock tournament for the Chuunin Exams end of next week. You're little weedling has been courteously invited to participate."

Sakura and Deidara scoffed at the same time. Sakura saying, "yeah, right."

And Deidara saying, "took ya long enough, yeah."

"Wait – what?" Sakura knew it wasn't a grand show of solidarity on her part but seriously ... _the hell_? She'd been out of the academy a few _months_. She didn't even know her nature affinity. She barely knew more than substitution and henge ninjutsu. How was she properly trained to become a chuunin? Or compete against those with _actual_ bloodline or clan technique potential?

"Info is inside." Touketsuchi stepped forward to hand Deidara an official looking scroll. As Deidara opened it, Touketsuchi pet Sakura's head and purred, "you'll be fine, yeah. We'll want you to survive well enough so you can at least report home. Well, if not in person...maybe we'll be able to transcribe for you."

Was that...some kind of threat, or the girl's kind of promise? Even if it was empty – but was it? Sakura felt sick. She kept from doubling to the ground until after the three had taken off again.

"See you around, _Dei_ - _nii_ ," and they were gone.

Sakura moaned into the dirt as she let her weight collapse.

Deidara finished reading the scroll and Sakura felt him prod her side with his foot. " _Spr_ - _out_? You okay down there?"

"What did you mean by 'took you long enough,' huh? Are you _trying_ to get me killed? " The thought could have been with some merit, Sakura reflected. "Shit. You are, aren't you? I'll die mysteriously in this tournament and, and –"

He made an unamused noise. "If Iwa wanted a Konoha sprout dead, yeah, this isn't how they would go about it. Tou-chan was right. You're getting invited to the mock tourney because our higher ups _want_ you to report back to yours. The whole thing's gonna be rigged against you."

"And yet you _want_ me to enter?"

Deidara's grin was feral. "I'm a great sensei like that, yeah. I have faith in you."

Sakura stared up at him, touched. Then she remembered who Deidara was, and groused, "this is a pride thing for you, isn't it?"

Not losing the smile, "yep."

"That is so cheap of you to sacrifice me for such a petty reason!"

"How's it cheap, yeah? You're going to get some good experience! You'll grow from this!"

"Yeah, whatever remains of me afterwards!"

"Sprout, listen," Deidara crouched down beside her to shake her shoulders. He wasn't smiling any more and tempered his excitement. "I wouldn't let you compete if I thought you couldn't hold your own, yeah. There's nothing else riding on this."

Sakura looked back at him and tried not to let her worried expression show from under her anger. "Do you really think that?"

"I do, yeah." His eyes didn't waver from hers. So many blues. But he did wink and smile once more. "You're my brilliant student, yeah, and you're going to _win_!"

It was so preposterous, she thought, but she smiled back at him and couldn't help but think – just the tiniest, tiniest bit – that actually, yeah, she wanted to win, too. She followed him as he stood upright and shook out her shoulders. "Well, fine then, sensei. What's the plan?"

Deidara kept his grin. "Finish your pull ups first, yeah!"

"Oh! Come on!"

O O O

Deidara gave the little piece of paper a suspicious glare. Sakura didn't feel like giving it any particular sort of look because she honestly had no idea what to think of it. All that had happened was, well, nothing. Deidara had handed it to her, told her to concentrate some of her chakra into it, and nothing happened. She'd shrugged her shoulders, but her sensei had immediately snapped it from her hand to give it a rather witheringly angry look. He narrowed his eyes and the paper crumpled into dust.

"Whoa!" Sakura clapped her hands a bit dully. "Neat parlour trick."

"It's not a parlour trick! This is special paper that's meant to help one determine their chakra affinity." He had another square in his hands and he channelled chakra into until the thing crumpled away.

"Oh. Why didn't you just say that before?" Sakura watched the dust drift away in the light breeze.

"Because I wanted to see the look of surprise on your face when the thing burst into flame or something. But yours just..."

"It sort of glowed green?"

Deidara fumed, clearly unhappy. "What the hell is that, yeah? That was just your chakra manifesting on the paper surface, but nothing happened!"

"And that's bad?"

"It means you don't have any affinity, yeah! Doesn't it? This means I can't teach you any element ninjutsu! None too easily, at the very least. Stupid paper!" Deidara clapped a hand over his brow and hissed through his teeth. He said nothing for a long moment.

Sakura took to skipping rocks over the stream where they were currently perching on some boulders. The news somehow didn't faze her – she wasn't from that sort of background, anyway. The most she ever really expected to do was perhaps become a chuunin when she was in her late teens and start teaching at the Academy. Focus on teaching the basics with Iruka-sensei. Oh, gentle, kind, encouraging Iruka-sensei... She wondered if he would approve of Deidara no Iwa's methods.

...Probably not.

Minutes passed, broken by splashes of more skipped stones. Vaguely, and to himself, Deidara said, "there might be something in that."

Sakura glanced at him with mild curiosity, chucked another disk-shaped pebble over the water. Teasingly, "yeah?"

Seriously, thoughtfully enough so that he didn't look at her as he talked, "yeah. You were onto something back at the Pit, remember? Using your chakra to lift the rocks? And then later during our spar...you did something then, too."

"Did...something..."

"When you clocked me on the chin, yeah?"

"No." She hadn't particularly cared to commit it to memory. She had won in the end, though, she remembered as much as that.

Deidara stood from his seat and dropped into the water. He held a hand out for her and she took it as she hopped down next to him.

"Where are we going now?"

"I've got an idea."

He stationed her on the shore and brought over a stone from the stream bed. Pointing at the stone, which might have been a third of her own weight. He place it on the ground and sat down cross-legged in front of it. He motioned her to do the same across from him. Once seated from him, he said, "pick it up. Mind your back, don't slouch, yeah."

She did as he instructed, adjusting her posture, but he halted her before she could lift the stone.

"With your chakra grip."

"Okay." And she did as told. It wasn't so bad, really.

"Think about the precise chakra you're using. Now, drop the rock."

She let it fall.

"Summon that same amount, pick up the rock. Drop it, yeah. Repeat. ...Again. ...Again. ...Again."

He had her go through the motions until he was satisfied. And then he had the next phase. "When you drop it, catch it."

"What?"

"Before it hits the ground, catch it in your hands with your chakra grip."

She tried. It didn't work. But it did on her second try. And her third, until she was repeating the action as much as the first phase and it got to be comfortable.

Deidara's grin returned as he stopped her once more, and Sakura sighed in relief. Of course, it was premature. Deidara rolled the stone away and replaced it with another, holding it above her hands for her to catch. "Try this stone next. Only, when you catch this, channel the same amount of chakra as before, yeah?"

The motion came naturally after so many repetitions; she summoned the chakra to her hands, she snapped her grip over the rock as it fell, and it broke to pieces under her fingers.

Sakura was frozen in place as dust and stone shards rained over her, but her sensei was on his feet in a second, laughing and throwing a hand up in the air triumphantly. "Damn, Sprout! You did it, yeah! Did you you _see_ that?"

And then he was pulling her up with him, white grin flashing before she was crushed against his chest in a hug. He yanked her away just as quickly. He might have been worried, but it was hard to tell around his smile. "Sakura! How's your hand? Does it hurt? You injured, yeah?"

She blinked. Looked down at her filthy hands. "I'm fine. What just happened?"

Deidara was still laughing, his blue eyes wide and grinning. He dragged her under him again and pressed his forehead to hers. "Something amazing, Sprout. You brilliant little –"

He was too caught up in his excitement and in a flash he was lifting up another stone. "Can you do it again?"

Do it again? Could she...smash a rock up like a clump of dirt? Sakura couldn't process what had happened, it was too...too _ridiculous_. She flexed her fingers, telling herself, _but it had happened._ Her stupor turned into a beaming grin. She matched her sensei's incredulous smile. "I don't know. Yes?"

He visibly reined in his excitement, attempted to speak calmly. "Sprout, yeah. This is it! This is your talent. This is your..."

"...If you say art I'm going to smack you," she said dryly, preceptively cutting off his gushing on _SuperFlat_.

This earned her a short laugh from Deidara and a shake of his head. His smile relaxed into something more genuine than she'd ever seen before. "This is how you'll win, yeah. It's all about chakra control, and you, little Sprout, have got it. Now let's see how good you are using your feet, yeah."

In the ten days leading up to the Chuunin Mock Ups, they spent four days working on her chakra control, and what Deidara affectionately referred to as her Smashy-Smashy tactics. They reviewed ninja tools and strategy after morning exercises, and the afternoons were spent seeing how much damage she could inflict on various things and in how many ways she could accomplish it. On day five they rested. On days six and seven they fought.

"This isn't just a spar, yeah, you gotta come at me with all the weapons, tools, strategy, and chakra you've got," Deidara reminded her as they faced off. Of course, he said that, but the first day they had spent fighting he'd not used a single jutsu and barely got winded the entire time. He smirked, easing into a fighting stance. "How's your chakra level?"

"I guess you'll find out," Sakura stuck her tongue out.

"On three?"

She nodded. Today would be different, she wouldn't make the same mistakes twice.

On 'one' Sakura slapped an explosive tag on the ground, activating it, and hopped back from the kick her sensei threw to her head. Over the tag's subsequent _boom_ she heard his maniacal approval. The previous day she'd had the idea to try and start off with a enhanced stomp of her foot – but she wasn't at that level yet. But she was close. Already she was comfortable using chakra to help with her take-downs; she'd yanked Deidara over her shoulder the day before by merely catching the sleeve of his shirt and tripping his leg out from under him with her chakra grip even when the momentum hadn't been in her favour.

Landing from her jump away from the explosion, she deflected the shuriken Deidara threw towards her from inside the dust cloud. Sakura made two clones and sent them around where she expected Deidara to be hiding, and a beat too long, noticed the genjutsu he used to prolong the cloud of dust in her vision. And because Deidara was _not_ the type to rely on illusions, she prepared for the inevitable strike coming at her. Experience told her he would favour taijutsu, but then again – her opponent wasn't the predictable type.

He was hanging back. The air cleared and he was nowhere to be seen. Sakura armed herself with a kunai and decided to get cover, using a substitution jutsu to get under the tree canopy. She ran up the trunk of a tree almost its length. If he was planning on mid to long range attacks, she wouldn't be able to rely on her taijutsu – which was arguably her strongest area after their time training over the past few months. Which was a hard thing for her to wrap her mind around, actually.

"Pay attention to your surroundings, yeah!"

Sakura, resting on a branch, didn't immediately get the hint. But looking around her, she felt her heart lose a beat as she noticed the explosive tags dotting the tree. She cursed and made a leap as the tags went off. Remote activation. The explosions followed her down from branch to branch, splinters catching up and surpassing her.

"What'd I say about your surroundings?" Deidara was at her side and tripping her as she fled.

The ground came up faster than she liked and Sakura fell into a very uncomfortable roll to cushion the landing. She didn't have a second to recover.

"Don't just block, yeah, look for openings," Deidara said, perfectly calm as he struck out at her. He smirked at her as she guarded against another hit, forcing her into a retreat.

"You don't have any!" She spat between gritted teeth. Bastard.

Deidara kicked out. Sakura latched onto his calf, dragged him to the ground with her as she twisted into a hold. Before she could wrench his arm back, his free hand slapped the ground. It wasn't a call to stop, he triggered another blast. Small and not horribly threatening, but it messed with her ears and orientation. She rolled over her shoulder instinctively. He was _not_ going easy on the explosives.

All the more evidenced by another land mine going off as she tried to get more distance.

"What the hell – did you set this up last night or something?" But at least she could identify the explosives' location by the texture of the earth where he'd quickly patted down dirt. She danced around them, knowing even as she avoided the patches, she was literally walking into a trap. He manipulated her movements by turning the terrain against her, trying to lure her to the trees. He'd probably littered the them with more traps.

Bastard!

Sakura swiped up pebbles and rocks from the ground, throwing them to set off the explosives to her right and left. She used the ensuing commotion to take off for the stream. She figured even Deidara couldn't place explosives on the water surface or use remotely activated tags that were soaking wet.

She figured wrong.

Cursing as the stream water burst into geysers around her, Sakura lost control of her footing and crashed under the water. The current and the residual blasts knocked her into circles until she didn't know up from down. She smashed into rocks, and like a starfish, clung to them as she righted herself. Air! She made the surface, choking and trying to gasp.

"You all right, Sprout?" Deidara was already at her side, quickly shedding that perturbed look at her near drowning.

Finished with her coughing, she dragged herself onto the stream surface, and paused in her panting to yell. "Where exactly am I supposed to go if everything around me is blowing up! The _AIR_?"

Thoughtfully, "it would be nice if you could, yeah."

"Uuugh..." It didn't seem a likely possibility that she'd develop wings any time soon. How could she hope to beat him?

The score so far: Deidara 1, Sakura 0.

At least she still had time to redeem herself from her performance yesterday (Deidara 12, Sakura 0).

Twelve rounds of bombs going off everywhere, though? She wondered if she'd survive. Deidara pulled her up from her crouching position on the stream and together they trekked back to the shore. With a few seals and a stomp of his foot, the jagged earth (torn up from so many things), rumbled and rose up before shuddering and settling into a flat plane once more.

"Round two?" Her sensei asked.

Sakura set her chin and nodded. She needed to expose and exploit his weakness. But what the hell _was_ his weakness? He was faster, stronger, more cunning than her. Had a larger arsenal of ninjutsu, more familiarity with the environment, more experience. What did he have that she didn't?

They were exchanging a volley of kunai interspersed with close-range sparring when it occurred to her. The thing Deidara had that she didn't – _responsibility to his student_. As seriously maddening as he could be at times, as a sensei, he held back enough to avoid doing any real harm. The moment she was in serious danger, he was there to rectify the situation (and usually looking completely freaked out for at least a second). All she had to do was take advantage of that opening.

If only she knew a genjutsu to fool him...but she didn't, so the damage would have to be real. But what could she sacrifice while still maintaining a chance to retaliate? How to orchestrate her own downfall to employ his? Damn, it was easier hypothesised than carried out.

After round seven (Deidara all, Sakura zip), they took lunch and a two hour recovery period. Sakura spent the time after eating floating and wading in the stream, stripped down to just her chest binder and athletic shorts. Deidara resumed his normal perch on the boulders and had scrolls out, back to his ever present research. He was drawing lines and circles on his palms and forearms between looking at the reading material.

"What are you working on, yeah?" Sakura asked, floating on her back in the calm water by the boulders.

He looked up from his work to frown down at her with his exaggerated pout. "Always on about my accent, yeah."

"It's more like a collective slang habit of some Iwa nin." She smiled, squinting a little from the sun. "My question stands though."

"Developing a jutsu," he said casually.

"That's all you ever say about it." Sakura had asked a few times before.

Deidara scoffed. "Can't go divulging secrets, yeah."

"Mm." She supposed she agreed. "Maybe I'll develop my own jutsu, too."

"Hey, don't stay in the water too long, yeah. You'll cool too much." Deidara pat the boulder and she acquiesced by climbing up to join him on the sun-warmed rocks. "Focus on that killer control you have. That's something worthwhile."

She supposed she agreed with that as well, she just didn't know in what direction to go with it. All Smashy-Smashy all the time? Channelling some other way? "Any direction or hints, sensei?"

"I already did that, I thought." He stuck his tongue out at her, using Sakura's own tactics against her.

"Always making me work for everything."

"Wouldn't be good any other way, yeah."

She smiled.

"'Nother half hour, and what do you say, we get back to it?" He suggested over the sketch and erase of his notes.

"Somehow I'm not that eager to get beat up – _again_." Besides, the sun was so nice, the air so comfortable, and the smooth rock under her so very warm. She could have easily napped, lulled to sleep by Deidara's constant revisions and the flow of the stream. If she closed her eyes, Sakura could convince herself she was back in Konoha and she was merely enjoying a day of leisure.

But then...Sakura didn't think she had ever enjoyed a day in Konoha the same way she was enjoying her time in Iwa. Which was weird because her time in Iwa had been hardships and difficulties one after another. Peeking an eye open to glance at her sensei, she wondered if it had to do with present company. The last person to push her so hard to become something more than she appeared was Ino. Perhaps it was that quality of Deidara that made her time with him so bearable. ...It definitely wasn't his usage of "affectionate terms of endearment" or constant foul language.

She laughed. An idea had just come to her about securing a win. It could work.

"What, yeah?" Deidara was immediately suspicious of her giggle.

Around another smile at his indignant tone, "ooh, nothing. Thirty minutes sounds good."

Some time later, during their eleventh round, Sakura had her chance. Deidara had created a dummy to lure her into a brawl, which she didn't know was a dummy at first but became apparent when she noticed the explosive tag, and – either very inconveniently or very conveniently – her shirt ripped. Caught on the edge of a blade and ripped diagonally opened, some of her clothing going with it. She should have rolled away to avoid the explosive tag as it went off, but with the excuse of modesty, she was in its range after detonation.

Her shoulder, the back of her neck and down her side took the brunt of the damage, and when she screamed from the pain it was sincere. She cursed a long line of things.

Deidara was at the ground by her side instantly. "What the – Sakura, what happened?"

She didn't need to act hurt, she was, but in his concern, her sensei was open. He leaned over her, checking her wounds, and her free hand had a kunai at his throat. "I win."

Deidara crumbled away.

She blinked stupidly through bleary eyes. "Oh _come ON._ "

Behind where she twisted on the ground, Deidara lifted Sakura up by her good shoulder. He whistled appreciatively as he looked over the scrapes and burnt skin on her left side. "Damn, Sprout. I'd be impressed if you weren't in a competition two days from now. Risky move, yeah."

"How...how did you know to send out another clone?"

Her sensei shrugged, his attention on peeling away fabric scraps stuck to her raw skin. "I was waiting for you to try that. For pretty much every bout, yeah. I'm surprised you waited so long."

"Uugh, so annoying. All that trouble." Sakura hissed with the pain and her eyes ran with tears. She couldn't remember ever getting a more serious injury.

But Deidara was smiling. "This is nothing, yeah. I've treated myself plenty for stuff like this. Kind of comes with the territory, eh?"

She sniffled and tried her best not to whine. For some reason, she had completely ignored how very tired she was until that moment. Sweat dripped down her skin and into the sores and stung. "Shannaro...it hurts."

Because it was an obvious thing to say, or maybe because he found her slang funny, Deidara laughed. He had a hand behind her ear and tugged her until their foreheads touched. "You stay here, yeah, I'll get the medical supplies I have. You'll be all right."

"Okay." Sakura had to speak to his chin. Her cheeks warmed. In a way, his nonchalance was welcome. It was almost like she was a _real_ shinobi and her injuries were a totally innocuous thing to come across in her line of work and therefore required zero coddling over. Despite the pain, she wanted to smile. But that could come later when she didn't feel like cursing more and crying so much. She managed a small, exhausted laugh. "Don't be long."

"I won't." He used a ninjutsu to raise a seat up from the ground for her and told her to sit while he was gone. He disappeared, leaving behind a cloud in his wake.

Sakura waited.

O O O

He wanted to be gone no more than a moment.

Deidara hadn't been lying to Sakura when he told her that he had dealt with similar injuries in the past. So frequently, in fact, the injuries had stopped fazing him altogether and he'd memorised the treatment himself. And it was such a hassle to go all the way to the Iwa hospital. They'd have to wait around for treatment, deal with overworked staffers and medics, probably sign forms and work out payments.

So he would be quick, up to the fortress and back to the woods in a matter of seconds, because all that stuff they could easily avoid thanks to his very handy medical bag that he kept fully stocked for just such occasions.

He had the bag strapped around his shoulder and middle when he heard the noise. The creak of wood bending under weight coming from inside his studio room. He eased his muscles from stiffening up in anticipation and walked to the door. Swinging it open, he wasted no time in chewing out the intruder.

"The fuck you doing here, asshole? This art's not for retail, yeah."

Deidara didn't step into the room.

Two people stood inside his work space and gallery of incomplete sculptures.

The tallest one, and the one who happened to have a giant ass sword on his back, grinned. His teeth were sharpened to points and gleaming white against his slate skin. "We're not here for the art, kid."

O O O


	7. Fell Between the Cracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated! Trying to become a published author, so, if you can, let me know what works in the story and what needs work :)

 

 

O O O

_Just thinking back, and stuck on your shoulder, and it drags you down_

O O O

 

Deidara saw that he had two options; be patient and analyse the situation, or, preferably, screw analysis and act boldly and immediately.

Who the fuck were these guys?

It didn't matter that he didn't know the two men standing in his studio; they each had an overwhelming presence that promised death, painful death, mind you, and that was enough for him to decide they were a threat. Missing nin, and foreigners at that. Deidara had no business with them. That and also one of the guys had teeth like a fucking shark so what was he supposed to think, yeah?

"We're just here for a talk, kid," the tall one said, lips raised in a benign smile over razor tipped teeth. A missing nin from Mist. The man glanced at one of the clay figurines to his left. Speaking to Deidara, "don't bother with setting off your clay. It wouldn't respond."

Deidara frowned. He _had_ been about to release the explosive chakra in the clay littered around the room and damn everything to hell. But the Mist nin's words stopped his hands from forming the seal. Acting contrary (as was his right, being he was fifteen and feeling just a little on edge), "don't know what you're talking about, yeah."

"Deidara no Iwa. Jounin, former student of the Tsuchikage, inheritor of the _blast_ chakra technique," said the man next to the Mist nin. Deidara eyed shorter nin. He was ex-Suna. There was something off about him. He was low to the ground – too low – and his face was stiff and lifeless. Almost like a doll. Deidara immediately distrusted this person more than the grey one.

He was spouting off a list. A check list of facts about him. _Shit._

"What's it to you, yeah?"

The Suna nin made a mechanical sound that came off as very annoyed and disapproving. What he said next made Deidara tense and the blood in his veins run cold. "Your work in Keryiat has caught our leader's attention."

"Ooh, he's got a stupid expression." The gery man again, and he gave a ferocious grin at Deidara's staunch rebuttal _(do not!_ ). "But you're thinking, how'd we know? Am I right? You might say ...your goals, our goals, they're not too far apart."

But Keryiat? Deidara felt a cool dread sink down him. There was no way – _no way_ – anyone could possibly know Deidara had purposefully compromised veins of the mine with his explosives. They would have had to have been there, or possibly been under ground since to examine the damage. Except to get close enough to surmise as much was simply impossible given the inferno he had left behind. No one would have been able to withstand the heat as the coal continued burning. And it would be burning still for a long time yet. Just who the hell were they?

"He's too young and inexperienced, Kisame. He's nothing like Itachi had been at this age."

Ah, fuck it, Deidara wasn't really that interested in knowing anything more about these two. He'd rather blow them to bits than get answers. Deidara had his hand in a seal and ready to detonate the explosive chakra when he felt his entire body go slack of its own accord. He couldn't move. It took him a moment to realise he was trapped within the ninjutsu of the Suna nin, his entire body held captive in chakra strings more powerful than he could counter.

"Eh, let's make introductions like we were asked. I'm sure the kid is willing to listen."

"Stop calling me a kid, damnit! I'll blow you to – "

" – Blow us _both_? Now, now. We're not here for that either – "

"– Pieces! Blow you _to_ _pieces_!"

"Before that, how about you listen to what we say, then you take a minute to think it over."

He had listened, in the end. There hadn't been any way for him to fight back, and when he'd mouthed off a bit too much – well, it hadn't gone very well. But his "guests" hadn't stayed very long. Words were exchanged, business cards swapped, things had progressed in quite the perfunctory manner. Deidara found himself alone in his home after what must have been only a few minutes, and he was pale and with barely enough energy to stand. He couldn't keep his calm even after the two foreign missing nin disappeared. His nerves were a mixture of fear and excitement.

They had made him an offer – and not one he necessarily wanted to refuse.

When he made it back down to the floor of the Mokuton forest, Deidara had to shake Sakura to bring her around. It was made easier by the fact he was shaking, too. It was that sword, that damn chakra eating sword. What the hell had that been?

He kept himself from patting down Sakura just to make sure all of her was still there. He had a thought those two might have seen her on their way out, but she appeared fully intact. At least, as much as she had been after their last sparring exercise. She was burned and starting to shiver from the toll and exposure.

Sakura bit off a few choice words at the disturbance as he woke her. He'd only been gone less than the better part of an hour and she'd passed out. It would have been kinda cute if he wasn't so pissed off and mildly disturbed (maybe a bit intrigued) by the conversation looming large in his mind. But he had to focus. Focus on his student and how she rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes with her good hand, because one was definitely her _bad_ hand at this point. He noticed her movements were stiff and that she was slow to sit upright.

She blinked, yawned, accidentally stretched her scorched side too much, and finally fully came to. Her eyes cleared and found his. "Did I fall asleep? Sorry."

The apology made him want to wince, but Deidara forced himself to remain expressionless. "Don't be. I was gone longer than I expected, yeah."

Had a whole new perspective on his future to think of that he hadn't expected. How would that work with his plans, anyway? Not to mention the responsibility he had to Sakura. Ah, he said _responsibility_ but really –

Sakura interrupted his frantic thinking.

"I put some water against it, I don't know if that was a good idea or a bad idea." She plucked at some of the used, sorrier scraps of her top. They were still damp and pressed against the burns and cuts from the explosive tag. "Stream water's probably not best."

Shit, he was the worst. But for such an opportunity to come to him like that _..._ Hell, maybe she could learn something from the offer as well, if just that the world was an unreliable, awful place on occasion. Of course, she was a child kunoichi, she probably didn't need the reminder of the nature of their world, even with her relatively privileged background.

"It's fine. Sit up." Deidara felt his hands trembling as he helped her slip off the remnants of her shirt, and sucked air between his teeth when he brushed over a blistering raw spot that made her jerk away. "Shit. I shouldn't have..."

"No, it's okay," she excused him. Typical of her. But then Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. She sounded suspicious. "You're not mad about this, are you? Cause when you left you weren't so freaked out."

Deidara's eyes met hers briefly, but he couldn't hold her gaze. He _wasn't_ freaking out, yeah, and he needed to stop giving her the ( _incorrect!_ ) impression that he was. He was too distracted, is all. "I'm not mad. Just realised I wasn't as prepared as I thought."

They wanted his skills and they had freedom for him. Was that really the case? Would he be an agent freelancing for a loosely gathered group? How strong was their cause? What benefit would they be for him?

"Oh." Sakura didn't seem very satisfied with his answer. " _Ah!_ Hurts..."

Shit, shit. What was the point of calling himself an artist and a shinobi if he couldn't will his fucking hands to stop shaking. "Sorry."

She gasped, but it was unrelated to the ointment he was pressing into her wounds. "Did you...just apologise? Something is definitely up."

Nothing is up, he wanted to say. But he didn't trust himself not to snap at her, so he bit down on the words. His first priority at the moment was her health. He remembered as much from Oonoki's mentorship. Motioning to her, "I need to – your binder is in the way – I need to remove it, mn. Is that okay?"

Sakura's face turned red very quickly. "Right. I can do that part myself, I think."

"Mn," he repeated, taking a moment too long staring at the burns. Shit. To realise he'd left her in such a state. He turned his back to her as she took care of her chest binding, slicing it clear off with a kunai, and handed her a towel he'd brought to clean the sweat and dirt off the affected area. And when she was ready, he passed her a new roll of bandages.

Wraps. Like that sword was bound in wraps until...It had smiled with the same pointed edges as its wielder.

"Good as new," she chirped after finishing with the temporary bindings. She was in a surprisingly upbeat mood. Maybe compensating for his lousy one.

He felt himself answering off-handedly, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

 _How had those bastards known?_ Who the fuck were Akatsuki? For them to have access to his mission records, to know about his work with explosives, to know the reason why he was on a 'recommended' furlough from high level missions – they must have an extremely extensive network. Not to mention the fact that they had entered the hidden village and trespassed into _his_ studio. Who the hell...

And somehow they knew about Keryiat. And so soon...

They knew about everything.

Assholes.

The one low to the ground with the mask had been more unnerving than the shark faced man. He'd also called Deidara stupid – but more importantly, he was _unnerving._ There was something too unnatural about him. And for him to be there with an ultimatum and then to mock Deidara's ninjutsu at the same time. What _was_ that?

Seriously, those fuckin' assholes.

"Deidara?"

Sakura. Don't look – _ah_ , damn. He was looking and she was staring at him with those inquisitive eyes. Green. She had enough flecks of yellow and even sharp little lines of amber in her irises so that the resulting shade of green was one he'd never seen on anyone in Stone. "Mn?"

Apparently she found his inattentiveness funny. Or possibly she was covering her unease with laughter. She did that sometimes. He didn't think she did it on purpose, trying to be fake or anything, but he always preferred people to be upfront. It was probably something she learned from her peers in the academy, maybe a Fire Country thing.

"I just thought maybe you wanted to decide what to do with the evening? We still have that last round for me to get my redemption," she said, smiling a little coyly, like she knew it was a ridiculous thing to say and that he might also very well go for it.

Filthy from head to toe, hair a mess, shirt missing, one side of her body busted up, and she was honestly suggesting finishing their training plan. Ever the stickler for schedules and regimens even in the face of painful, bleeding adversity. This side of her sort of made him proud, made his chest swell pleasantly. Normally he'd welcome it.

He pouted at her poorly timed enthusiasm.

Shit, why had his visitors mentioned _her_? Specifically, it had been the ex-Suna nin who brought her up.

' _The kunoichi...she's from The Leaf, isn't she? And they left her in your responsibility...'_ That was all he had said, and it could have been interpreted in any multitude of ways – but it was enough.

Fuck it. Why hadn't they just waited a few more months to offer him the possibility of blowing lots of shit up? He was already planning on it any way, if not exactly as more of a free-for-hire mercenary, but still. Why did so many things have to overlap? He still had plans to carry out, things to steal, places to bomb of his own accord...

"Really, Deidara, what's with your face? It's weirder than normal." Sakura poked his cheek. "So serious, yeah."

Ah man, he was so out of luck.

But at least he had some time to work with.

O O O

Sakura had two full days of rest to enjoy before the tournament. While Deidara spent some of that time going over strategies with her, hemostly he secluded himself in his studio otherwise; she was able to do as she pleased and she found such liberation more daunting than she remembered. Stretching and going through katas could only offer so much and then it was pouring through her reading materials and working on her memorization that filled her afternoons. Then it was going over her equipment. Several times. She didn't know what to do with the tanto Deidara had given her, as he had admitted his unfamiliarity with kenjutsu, but she sort of liked the thing and figured she could improvise with it if the need arose.

Densely, she spun in a circle trying to figure where to put the thing on her outfit.

All that she accomplished was discovering her clothes were in a rather sorry sort of state after several months of daily training and only five alternates to go through.

She was in her room, standing in front of her mirror with a matching sorry sort of expression to the sorry state of her general appearance, numbly scrutinising herself, when Deidara came into the frame of the doorway to her back. Like her, he was frowning. His clothes were frayed and smoking in places – no doubt from the explosions she had been hearing near non-stop from his studio and garden over the past few days. His shorter hair was frayed out at the ends, his face was lined and deeply shadowed from loss of sleep, his eye make-up smudged from where he'd rubbed at it.

Sakura flashed a grim, thin-lined smile at him through the mirror. Together they made quite the winning portrait.

"I wouldn't bother with any of those," her sensei said in greeting, nodding his chin at the different outfits she had laid out on the floor. Over time they had ripped, been resown, shredded, patched, and altered in a number of other ways. Her favourite athletic qipao was a wisp of its former self; she had hacked off its sleeves, trimmed its length, and replaced its clasps. Her pants had long ago met identical fates, all now resembling shorts.

"Yeah, not exactly sending the message to take me seriously, huh?" She toed the nearest shredded top. There was something to say about dressing oneself for the job. Even in the mercenary ranks of shinobi, there was room for pomp. Clans especially liked to show off. But Sakura laughed, short and more like a cough. Her clan was civilian and unimportant at that. She had no one to impress, really, as a genin. And trying to glamour anything together for Iwagakure would probably come off desperate. "Anyway. I'm a little late for the shopping trip montage before my big debut at the mock tournament."

"I have something that could work." He must not have thought his words through. Deidara seemed surprised at his own suggestion, a faint glow coming to his cheeks.

Not knowing what to expect, Sakura shrugged her shoulders. While he was gone she tested the strength of the shirt she was wearing and cursed when her finger easily pushed through another new hole in the side. If he's bringing her thread, she hoped Deidara brought the stuff for mending heavy canvases because that was the type of sturdiness her clothing could use.

He returned with something better. Handing the folded things to her, his face deceptively blank, he said, "they might fit, yeah."

Sakura glanced up at him, fingers a little unsure as she accepted the clothing. She didn't have to ask where they had come from; he'd probably grown out of the items a few years ago. A mesh under shirt and a single woven, soft teal green uwagi.

"I can modify the length, take off the sleeves." Deidara didn't meet her eyes or even so much as look up from her hands. "Any way, it will be more lightweight than what you've had, yeah."

"It's beautiful material," she said in agreement, feeling how lightweight and tough both shirts were.

"Oh. Well that, yeah, and I haven't been using a weight training jutsu on these."

It took a second for the admission to filter through Sakura's brain. She felt the grateful smile tugging at her lips twitch violently. "...What was that?"

Not caring for treading on volatile ground, Deidara grinned at her. "Since you got here, yeah. I've been steadily adding weight to your clothes each morning. Helps that you lay things out the night before. It's cute."

"Don't say that with such a proud expression, you masochist!" The truth was that she actually appreciated this bit of helpfulness on her sensei's part, but she couldn't be one to let him get away with such sneaky tactics so easily. She had trouble concealing her grin with her put-upon outrage. Deidara seemed to have caught the smile any way, adopting one of his own in turn.

"I'm not a masochist – the correct term you're looking for would be _sadist_. At least in this particular instance. I mean, sometimes, sure, but more importantly I'm your _sensei_ , yeah. Here, turn around." He helped her slip the open shirt on, tugged it snugly against her and looked from Sakura to her reflection in the mirror. Absently, "complements your hair."

Sakura didn't have time to blush before he was tugging the thing off again to cut the sleeves. Tempering the warmth that threatened her cheeks, she watched him, and noticed how his movements were different somehow, more rigid. He'd clamped down his good mood again; ever one to oscillate. He looked overdrawn, and risking the upswing of His Moodiness, she asked, "did you get any sleep last night?"

The question had been on her mind the entire day. He'd been quiet at breakfast, hadn't made a fuss at any of her usual jibes, and had retreated to his studio after their morning training session. But she covered the weight of her concern by speaking casually, busying herself with slipping the mesh armour over her wraps and binder.

"Look that bad, yeah?" He managed around a wry twist of his lips.

"I didn't say that. It's just your..." Sakura tried to find the right word, hid behind looking at him in the mirror to do so, "your _energy_ is low. And I thought I heard you up early this morning. You didn't eat very much before. And your lecture on art was suspiciously short today."

He didn't react to her joke and her smile faltered. Instead he motioned for her to slip on the newly modified shirt. His movements were deliberate and seemed to last a long time as he pulled the fabric into place. His knuckles dragged against her bare skin and she could feel the textures of his scars. The top was better with her arms free, she thought.

"This suits your fighting style more," he said, catching her eyes in the glass reflection.

Her _fighting style_. She liked the sound of that, what it meant about her.

"One more thing." He was out of the room and back in a moment, using shunshin jutsu to such a precision it was almost infuriating. Infuriating enough to make her insides flutter at his calm control and cool exterior. He was an expert and he was training her. Several months too late it occurred to Sakura – Deidara was a _shinobi_ and it was effortless for him.

He caught her staring at him, and misinterpreting her intention, looked at the long piece of fabric he held in his hands. He turned uncertain. "Nothing exciting, I guess, yeah. Just a white wrap."

"No, that's not – I like it." She motioned him to bring it forward, let him circle it around her middle when he stood close. The material was cool and smooth under her fingertips while he was a close warmth at her back. Sounding a lot more bold than she thought she was, "would you tie it for me?"

It really was bold, too, because Sakura couldn't look at him when she asked. He watched her face in the mirror, a neutral expression taking over his hesitance.

She wondered why Deidara didn't refuse – he didn't even mock her for the request. She knew how to tie what was essentially a more flexible and durable obi...but somehow she thought...

Deidara was careful and firm wrapping the cloth around her, fastidious and not looking away from his work. The knot was perfectly comfortable. He stepped back to consider it, took a second and moved forward to tug her shirt into just the right arrangement. Then he was measuring her up from bottom to top.

Nervous at his silent stare, she hedged. "Well, how do I look? Finally something like a real kunoichi?"

"Tch." And the noise he made had Sakura wilting on the inside though she couldn't admit to herself why. Deidara returned to her side and knocked her chin with his hand, not hard. "Seriously, your self-esteem issues are for the books."

It wasn't the first time for her to hear such a thing, having been told something similar in the past by Ino. She laughed, shallow with dejection and acceptance.

Thinking over his words, he said, "Sprout, I've never considered you anything less, yeah."

He said it too solemnly. It was too honest and reassuring. Too much and he was standing so close and maybe his warmth had tagged her as she felt it in her face, a pleasant shiver down her spine. A ridiculous notion – but she was _sure_ it was gratitude lifting her spirits. A simple thing, really, she told herself.

Sakura forced out another light sound of laughter and waved her arms in front of her. _"Whoa,_ you're so serious. How unlike you."

Oddly, and very much against the grain of his typical behaviour, Deidara forced himself to laugh along. "You're right, yeah."

They both sounded and felt very stupid and very much like they were lying suddenly, but Sakura didn't know she wasn't alone in this feeling.

Later that evening, a mere fourteen hours from the start of the Mock Ups, she laid out over her futon and watched Deidara's shadow on the partisan screen. He would get up and leave his room every so often, backlit by the moonlight coming through his window, and stalk back in looking agitated a few moments later. Once she heard her door open and she felt with the hairs on the back of her neck that he was checking in on her, not knowing she was awake enough to realise what he was doing.

"Are you lurking there?" She mumbled into her pillow. "Having you acting like this is making me reconsider my chances for today, sensei."

"Just! ...Shut it, yeah." Deidara was grouchy. Lack of sleep, she wanted to point out, and he wasn't helping her either in that regard. He wasn't finished with his mumbling. "It's just...first student, yeah."

A part of her was worried and put off by his fretting, but that confession made her giggle and smash her face deeper into her pillow as if to wipe away the smile on her lips. Her toes wiggled and flexed. "We'll still have time to be nervous losers in the morning, you jumpy walnut, get some sleep."

"A nut she calls me." Deidara shifted and somehow she knew he was throwing his hands to the air in exasperation. But his playfulness disguised what she suspected was something actually proving troublesome for him. She just didn't think the Mock Ups warranted such a response.

Sakura felt a little differently over breakfast – and _completely_ differently by the time she and Deidara were making their way through the outskirts of the main village. All of his pacing and general twitchy-ness had transferred to her and suddenly she could only think about the fights and how very likely it was that she would die horribly and in some unidentifiable shape of Leaf kunoichi compost.

If that were to be the case, the best she could hope for would be leaving her opponent in much the same condition. She lied this resolution to herself the entire trip to the tournament arena.

"Sprout," Deidara said, motioning with a nod that their destination was a building not far ahead. There were crowds of ninja lulling about, some walking up the stone steps leading to the doors. It was a fairly good number of people but there was no definite count on how many would be participating and how many were spectators. Deidara said, "don't attack first, abuse your opponents' weaknesses, yeah. Remember what I said about seals. And...don't forget I'm rooting for you."

"Eh?" Sakura had been steeling herself in her opponent's company and attempting to tighten her hitai-ate. She had missed her sensei's advice, what he'd said coming in belatedly by bits and pieces. Around the hair tie in her mouth, "what was that first part?"

Belatedly as well, she blushed at his encouragement. And then, "...rooting for me?"

"Cause you're a _Sprout,_ get it? Roots."

Sakura didn't get the chance to smack his arm.

"Deidara-nii!"

They were outside the tournament building steps when a girl Sakura figured to be around her own age, broke away from a four man cell to run up to Deidara. She looked like a smaller, shorter haired version of the kunoichi who had come to deliver Sakura's Mock Ups invitation. Noticeably, her eyes were a dull red colour.

"Deidara-nii," the girl repeated, coming to a stop in front of him. She was staring at Deidara with gleeful determination. "I heard you would be here today! Here to cheer me on? I've been practising, you know, since last time!"

Sakura knew enough about her age group and how they acted to justify very minutely narrowing her eyes at the two of them.

Her sensei wiggled his eyebrows, grinning. "Kuro-chan... I'm still waiting to be impressed, yeah."

The girl delighted in the challenge, thrust a pointed finger under Deidara's chin, and claimed. "You'll see today! And after I win – I want to fight you next!"

And then, as if seeing Sakura there for the first time despite her proximity to the shinobi she'd just been talking to, Kuro- _chan_ gave her a dull look. "Oh. The Leaf exchange student? I forgot she'd been dropped off on you."

Sakura gave a restrained, mechanical wave.

"Ehn," was the unimpressed response. Looking back to Deidara again, she said, "see you in the stands, Deidara-nii."

Deidara gave the girl a suave grin and cute wave good-bye.

A vein twitched on Sakura's head. " _Ehn_? What does that mean? _EHN?_ And stop looking so pleased! Really, like a fat cat with cream."

Deidara gave her a look that showed he was equally unimpressed with Sakura. Then he smiled slyly.

"Who doesn't like an admirer here and there. It's so cute when they've got such good taste, yeah," he said, and adding with some muttered bitterness, "...unlike haggard old vulture sister of hers."

"I'm going to beat her," Sakura promised, ignoring her sensei's rambling. Feeling fired up for the first time that morning, she clenched her fists. "No one refuses to acknowledge me! And not so plainly to my face, too!"

"Yeah!" Deidara crowed, fired up too. "It should be hard not to acknowledge that brow of yours face to plain face!"

"You know that's _not what I meant_ – you're so impossible sometimes – "

Despite herself, she was boosted by their bickering. She held onto it even when she felt, _sensed_ , how Deidara's attitude shifted whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention. But he seemed determined to not let her know any better about his lingering mood, and she acted along, entering the tournament building in high spirits. Which Deidara quickly bogged down once more as he ticked off the names and specialities of different genin they passed. Iwa had its own clans and clan techniques, bloodline limits, geniuses, and generally scary sounding people. Gathered in the stands around the centre arena, more than a few _looked_ scary as well.

Eyeing one boy with an emaciated face and three bars protruding from the shaved half of his head, Sakura asked the obvious. "So what's the format of the Mock Ups? Is there a mock mission portion or a survival test? Paper test, maybe?"

"Paper test?" Deidara snickered, "someone's hopeful. The people you'll be in the ring with today have been pre-screened to show off their _fighting_ skills in one on one. We're interested in practical performance in a combat situation. That's all."

"Pre-screened?"

"Yep, so there's no getting lucky with a weak, wilting type, yeah."

Sakura stuck her tongue out at that, then took a moment to read the board at one end of the arena space. There were sixteen Iwa genin that apparently garnered enough interest to make the Mock Ups, and there was a pyramid of single round elimination matches. With Sakura added to the mix, it made for an odd number and the set up went so that one person would advance after an extra round. Sakura snorted at the expense of the two idiots who would get stuck in that poorly favoured extra round.

Only a little while later and she was one of those two idiots.

O O O


	8. Holy and on Display

 

O O O

_Shine on, roll on, and hold on, run like the devil_

O O O

 

As she remembered it, Uzumaki Naruto had a single ninja goal: get super strong and make people like him!

Or something like that... Sakura thought, really, maybe it was earning attention of others through shows of strength? Making friendships through fighting? She had never deigned to commit it to memory. It had been a few months since she had last heard the boy shouting about his dreams to become the leader of the Leaf from his painting vantage point on the Hokage Monument. But, the general idea was something along that line of fighting and finding friendships, respect, or even just acknowledgement with your fists.

She didn't know why Naruto's confidence came to her as her name was selected for the first round of the Mock Ups.

She wondered what her chances were of applying such a tactic here, in an arena so very far from the boisterous, Number One Drop-out. Again she wondered why she was even thinking of _that_ classmate of all her classmates. Maybe because if the Number One Drop-out were here in Iwa now, he'd be up in the stands cheering her on louder than any of her sceptics could boo. Naruto had always been one for boasting about Sakura's talent in class, but she couldn't remember why that had bothered her so much in the past.

Well, he _had_ had a way of embarrassing her and going on about things even after she asked him (politely and then even with her fists, the way he preferred it) not to do so. Ah, but then...hadn't she been that way with her own crush? At least she had never been physically pushed away in the manner that she had pushed away Naruto, as oddly affectionately and not too dangerously it might have been.

Were there any other reasons she had disliked him so much?

He had never handed in assignments on time, he disrupted lectures, had at times a gross sense of humour, he had pulled Iruka-sensei out of the classroom on numerous occasions. Overall – because he had generally been an unrestrained prankster with no parental guidance and no regard for rules and order and some small amount of tact, unlike herself.

Yes, that was it.

She used to line her pens on her desk in an orderly gradient from dark purple to her white highlighter ink and Naruto would blunder by and knock them aside as he tried to lean over her to get her attention. Or when she had first started practicing with kunai and Naruto had declared to the entire class she'd be great at throwing them because she had short, strong hands for a good grip. That time he had admitted to her that he picked a topic for a group assignment merely because she had also chosen it, and that way he could just loaf around while she did all the hard work and got the good grade for them because, she was 'the most brilliant girl in class!'

He was annoying. She supposed that was because no one had been a steadfast enough presence in his life for him to learn any proper semblance of social behavior. Like Deidara, who at least for a time had the guidance of his tutors and captains for him to learn from and mimic.

In a way, she could see that the two actually had overlapping characteristics, especially in terms of mischief.

Sakura thought she could admit, at this point in time, she did not exactly dislike that – the lively, joyful prankster personality.

But her parents had never liked that about Naruto. They had never liked the boy at all from what she remembered of her childhood. Dully, she thought about how that hated boy was supposed to have been her team mate back in Konoha if she had stayed. Her parents would have been concerned, but they probably would have like Sasuke, because he was quiet. Like. Eerily quite and absolutely more concerned with himself than ever aware enough of Sakura to disturb her studies. He couldn't even be bothered enough to look her way when they passed papers in class. He would not have been a distraction like Naruto.

But neither of her would-be team was with her now in the Mock Ups arena. There was no rallying support for her coming from the stands. Maybe that was why she had thought of Naruto - because he would have been obnoxiously cheering her on.

There was lots of heckling, though, from Iwa. Like, way too much, she thought. Apparently the younger generation wasn't yet ready for the peace treaty with Konoha. She heard for the fourth time someone yelling at her to 'eat dirt', a popular saying. If it had been Deidara saying it to her, then it would have strictly been for the fact that she was from the Village Hidden in the Leaves and leaves and dirt were connected or something. _'A Sprout needs dirt, yeah?'_ He'd probably do something like that. But he was very quiet for someone who was _supposed_ to be her sensei.

Sakura found him in the spectators and stuck her tongue out at him as she climbed up the steps to the raised platform that served as the fighting plane. She couldn't see how he reacted, there were more pressing things to consider. Her opponent, for starters, entering the arena at the opposite end.

The platform was rectangular, outlined by giant rock slabs underfoot with a packed earth centre. She'd never fought in such an environment before, wondering how she would do in the flat open space. Cover of rock formations or some sort of vegetation was much more her preference.

Sakura wondered how the boy standing opposite her felt about it, the other unlucky idiot who had drawn the proverbial short straw. Kunimoto Eiji, age thirteen, one year genin experience, team mate of Kurotsuchi _-chan._ He looked like the cool type, with features that promised handsomeness as he matured, strawberry blonde hair styled in the common Iwa manner of a half ponytail. Thin physique, shorter than her, too, and chronically slouched in that carefree, smug sort of way. His clothes were the typical loose garb of his country, too, asymmetrical, maroon and tan in colour. Under the black cloth and metal hitai-ate on his forehead, Eiji's eyes were a cold steel grey. He scowled at her as she sized him up, not feeling it pressing to return the favour. He had already written her off in his arrogance.

Admittedly, probably the type she might have crushed on had she been in his class.

Fleetingly, she missed those idle academy days of tests and crushes. More immediately, she was excited to see what Eiji could do in the ring. A shaking heartbeat - Sakura was excited to see what _she_ herself would be able to do. A long suffering, long silenced part of her wanted to knock that egotistical dismissal off the boy's face. She thought, she wanted to _make people acknowledge her for once._

The problem was that neither Eiji or Sakura could afford to do very much in the first round. One reason being whoever won this round would be going for four more afterwards and there was something to be said about conserving chakra. Another reason being – who could afford to be so flashy at this junction? It was too early to reveal all the good tricks from up their sleeves.

The shinobi in charge of arbitrating the matches had directed the two genin to face off in the middle of the arena. And then he called for it to start and dropped his arm.

With no time for hesitation, she acted.

Sakura used one of her favoured tactics used in spars against her sensei, sending two clones to her left while throwing shuriken from both directions. Use shunshin to come in behind the opponent out of the projection of the weapons. Clones come in close for promised taijutsu that forces an opening. Strike for the back of the neck with a debilitating hit. Fast, minimal effort, effective. It had worked on one of Deidara's clones at least.

Eiji put her plans to a halt with one quick ninjutsu, an encompassing wall of fire that originated around him and blasted outwards, throwing back the shuriken and obliterating her clones. The fire pulsed towards her position in his blind spot and she twisted back to avoid the flames. In a second he was pursuing her, charging forward with a series of kicks. She went from the offensive to the defensive and avoided each hit as it came down.

She ducked a kick, thinking herself clear for a counter-strike when a ribbon of flame followed behind Eiji's leg at a second's lapse to hit her fully.

She might have thought to hold back, but Eiji's approach appeared to be 'go all out and end the match succinctly.'

Fire – _fire_. His control was advanced for a genin and she couldn't shake the surprise and the reaction to pain as easily as she would have liked. _Fire_. Why not an earth affinity!? Something tangible that she could smash through with her fists? They were in _Stone_. ...What awful luck.

Distance. Cover, but there was none. _Shit_ , why wasn't she properly equipped with a scroll full of water? Or better yet, the natural affinity for water and the vast amount of jutsu she could have learned easily along with it.

She needed another way to defeat Eiji. All that she had was her brain – and it was _supposed_ to be a good one! _Think._ Her body reacted to his movements and she watched Eiji for weaknesses. Observe, find the spot where he was open, exploit. He was slower than Deidara by a great amount; and, she found, she was faster than Eiji.

The jutsu was restricted to his legs, and the flame followed his kicks with a gap of less than a second. Long enough.

She continued weaving, feigning the retreat until – _there_ – she latched onto his leg with chakra and darted forward and around Eiji's stance, spinning the boy off his feet. Followed with a twist and into a full mount, grabbing for his arms. His hands were free a moment too long – she hadn't been careful enough to grab an arm while taking him to the ground. Seals and another pulse of fire rushing out at her, Sakura flung herself away. The hairs on her forearms disappeared in an instantaneous _poof_ from the lick of flames, her skin tightening with the burn.

Three seconds later and Eiji used the jutsu again, the flames hotter, faster, travelling further outwards to catch her as she fell back. Another sharp wave of blistering, puckering skin. Sakura's nose itched with the smell of charred hair and flesh. Her eyes burned, her throat and lungs thirsted in the heated air as she panted. She was backed against the stone ring around the packed dirt, hovering at with one knee to the ground and her shoulders bowed.

Was she breathless already? From exhilaration, she realised.

Maybe she didn't have a motto and goal like Naruto did, and maybe she was not going to gain Eiji's respect fighting him, but something – some drive of some sort – was hardening in her chest. A resolve. She didn't have a reason for fighting in the Mock Ups, there was nothing at stake, but if she was going to fight, she might as well give it her all. No backing down!

Not a perfectly beautiful or inspiring motto, but she could always work on her Will of Fire later.

She didn't back down in the face of disaster and death. She wouldn't stay on her knees for a simple tournament.

Three seconds between the fire pulse jutsu, one second lapse from Eiji's kicks. She was faster than him. She thought: take away his ability to make seals, take away his ninjutsu. Force him to use the fire pulse, open a window and get in close.

Sakura ignored the ripping sensation of forcing her red hands to make seals for clones. Nine copies of herself and a shunshin as she circled her opponent. Eiji was undisturbed as the many Leaf kunoichi closed in on him. Nine swarmed onto him, Sakura used chakra released from her feet as she jumped to push herself higher into the air above him. He used the flame pulse and the clones dispersed.

Three seconds. Sakura dropped from her jump, tugged off her waist cinch, and used her new shirt to fan away the brunt of the jutsu.

Eiji looked up and moved away as she landed on the packed dirt, recovering from her attempted kick and rebounding up from the ground with a series of punches. Two seconds.

He used his forearm to block a punch, but her palm was open, ready to latch on. He pushed away her reach, remembering what she had done earlier. One second. She threw her other arm out, knocking his parry away and then they were locked hand in hand.

Seals impossible. Check.

He swung his head forward to knock her out and Sakura leaned back, stepped up his body while squeezing their interlocked fingers with a chakra-enhanced grip. He yelped, lost his grip. She had enough momentum as she dug a knee into his chest to swing herself up around his arm and shoulder, rotating at the middle until they were both careening for the ground. They landed with Eiji on his back and Sakura on her hip, his right arm in her hands and her legs around his neck.

He seized and she bent his arm unnaturally. Pressure around his neck, the vital blood flow there.

Seconds ticked by and it felt like minutes. Eiji stopped resisting.

There was noise from the stands, but Sakura heard the conclusion of the fight perfectly clear. "Match goes to – _Haruno Sakura_."

Laughter bubbled in her throat and caught on the dryness there. She released her hold on Eiji and fell onto her back. Her skin protested and her fingers curled in on themselves, but she had done it.

Something moved and she felt Eiji's body being tugged out from under her calves. It was his jounin instructor come to retrieve the boy.

Where was her own jounin instructor to do the same? Sakura could do with someone else dragging her from the arena. But she scoffed at the query and got herself to her feet. _She_ wasn't knocked out.

Because she had won. She had _won_.

I wasn't her first time going into a fight, and not even the first time she had bested someone (she had been at least somewhat passable in physical training while at the academy), but it was the most painful and the absolute sweetest victory Sakura had ever gained. Because all those watching her had wanted her to lose.

Sakura felt stiff and taut as she walked back to the arena steps, hands too sore to do much more than limply let her shirt (still off and slightly fringed in black) dangle from her fingertips. A man approached her that she didn't recognise, but he identified himself as a medic-nin. Abstractly, she thought of the woman named Shizune from the onnsen, and it was through this vague connection that she allowed the man to poke at her reddened flesh.

Healing chakra hurt, she decided as she automatically twitched away from the invasive glow, but after a moment there was some relief.

"Nice work, Haruno-san. Your match went well. Quickly, too, considering," the man said this with a low voice, lips barely moving, as if afraid to admit as much to a foreign genin. He was younger, and had a gentle sort of face, brown hair framing the cut of his jaw. He was wearing what could have been a specific uniform for his job.

"Thank you," Sakura said. Letting the man work, she tried to turn and find her sensei in the crowd of spectators. More than anyone else she wanted his feedback. Was he happy? Had she finished the match to her best ability? Could she have done better? He would have insight to those things, Sakura was sure.

But her questions would have to wait, because as she finally spotted her sensei, she heard her name being called. Or rather, announced.

"First match of Round Four: Ikari Shiohi versus Haruno Sakura."

Cheers went up and filled the cavernous room, but Sakura had tensed beyond the use of her ears. She felt herself freeze into statue - a suspended state of disbelief and a fair bit of annoyance. _Impossible._ Another match so soon?

But then...hadn't the tournament been rigged against her?

Looking around again for her sensei, she finally saw Deidara only when he came into focus right next to her nose. He stood next to her but was glaring up at the screen bright with the kanji of her name. "That's cheap, yeah. Are you finished yet?"

The medic-nin, seeing that he was the one addressed, shook his head. "Not quite."

"Does Haruno-san wish to forfeit?" A man asked from the raised platform. The proctor, whom Sakura hadn't had any thoughts about earlier, called this down to her with a smug smile. She decided then he was awful and repugnant. Also his asymmetrical hairstyle was stupid. Waving lazily over his shoulder, he sneered, "her opponent is already in the ring."

"She's still recuperating from her last bout, yeah," Deidara said, the unsaid ' _idiot_ ' nonetheless tangible.

"Oh," the proctor said, but not in response to the statement so much as to the person that had said it. " _Heey_ ~ It's Deidara-kun! Or should I be saying Deidara-sensei now?"

Sakura turned her attention to the medic-nin. She wasn't going to forfeit. As if. Just let her sensei keep the proctor talking. To the medic-nin, "focus on my hands, I need my hands."

"Right, right."

"What does she say?" There was unrestrained haughty amusement in the proctor's voice.

"She says she doesn't know why she would answer the questions posed by a horse's ass."

Sakura stifled a laugh, surprising herself at finding the insult funny. She watched the medic-nin's glowing hands abate and his medical ninjutsu eased away, and then as he spread ointment over the abused skin of her hands, finishing off the treatment with bandages. The material was thin and forgiving enough for seals. The pain was bad, throbbing with her fast pulse, but she told herself it would get better if she didn't dwell on it.

"I can give her another minute, tops. Then I'm calling it."

"Then find something else to do for the next sixty seconds, idiot!" Ah, that time he said it. Deidara pivoted around to watch the progress in her treatment. He used the time to catch Sakura up on the genin waiting in the ring.

"She's another one of Kurotsuchi's team mates, not affiliated with any of the Iwa clans. Like her team mates, she has been out of the academy for six months. Kind of a quiet type, but I'm guessing resilient, yeah. Especially since she's been around Kuro-chan."

The medic-nin insisted on checking Sakura's lungs and throat for damage, so she could only answer the intelligence with shrugs and nods. While the medic-nin re-wrapped her middle, removing the old bandages from her brush with the explosive tag days before, she asked Deidara what she had wanted to hear most. "How did I do?"

He took his eyes off the staring contest he'd been having with the proctor to blink at her, caught off guard. "What? You mean against Kunimoto? It was fine, yeah."

"Oh."

"Alright, you can go, Haruno. I'd tell you not to push it, but I know you won't listen." The medic-nin ran a hand over the work he'd done patching up her side and tapped it with some sort of parting good will.

"Oh." Sakura said again. She bowed her head, thanking the nin. She replaced her shirt and the cloth wrap around her waist. Meeting Deidara's eyes, she nodded. It was almost reassuring that he wasn't more impressed with her victory. He expected it from her and he wanted more. He knew she had more to offer. "This time I'll do more than _fine_ , yeah."

Deidara understood as she looked at him, caught on to her hopefulness, and grinned. He wanted her to win. Nodding back, he squeezed her shoulder as she passed him. His eyes were bright and dancing with light. "S _hannaro!_ "

Sakura felt something in her chest lighten, and she walked back onto the platform.

O O O

Ikari Shiohi was as tall as Sakura, as slender, but paler skinned and she had let her black hair grow out long like a ghost's. She had a fringe of bangs coming out from under the hitai-ate on her forehead to obscure her eyes. She wore a loose, short-sleeved jumpsuit, cinched with a vest. Maroon, tan, black. Her stance appeared relaxed to the untrained eye, but the girl was ready to fight. Very ninja-like, Sakura concluded.

Sakura's basic approach would remain the same; test the waters to get a feel for the genin's style, conserve chakra, observe, exploit. That was the most practical thing to do when facing an unknown opponent.

With Eiji, Sakura had moved in with distractions. For Shiohi, she would open up the space with distractions.

The proctor called for the start of the match, dropping his arm.

She gathered from her pouch six kunai, two attached with explosive tags. Sakura leapt into the air, spinning backwards, and tossed out the weapons. She heard the air whistle with the kunai Shiohi had thrown in return, but the two each went wide on either side of her, thumping dully into the dirt. The platform shook as Sakura's explosive tags went off, dusty clouds and clumps of debris sent into the air.

Sakura fell to the ground, landing in a crouch, and noticed flickering movement, the image of someone coming towards her with shunshin. She took off, heading to the end of the platform, and circled around the encroaching genin.

There was just one problem.

Shiohi was faster. She used the shunshin much more efficiently and, closing the distance between them, incorporated it into her taijutsu. Shiohi landed a hit on Sakura's upper arm before she dropped to the ground and kicked upwards to catch Sakura's middle, effectively going for the recent wound from the first match.

But Sakura wasn't a top student at the academy for nothing – she was a fast learner. Understanding how Shiohi was fighting, Sakura implemented the same technique of shunshin application to quick movements. And it wasn't, apparently, so much that she was slower than Shiohi, only that she had not been quite as ruthless.

Soon they were trading blows and blocks equally, until Sakura attempted to gather chakra into her fist and she became that much, marginally, slower. Shiohi didn't let the slip up go, and used the fractional opening to speed forward and shoulder check Sakura backwards.

Something solid and smooth stopped her as she was thrown. The wind left Sakura's lungs in a whoosh, leaving her sputtering and choking on sudden emptiness. Disoriented, she flailed her arms out to her sides, fingers scratching at the odd buzz of energy around her, and she slid down to the dirt.

 _Air_ , finally, as she regained the wind in her chest. But what had she been knocked into?

"Can you figure it out? No? It is a barrier."

Sakura looked up at the genin standing in front of her some five odd metres away. There was a thin smile on the girl's face.

When Shiohi spoke, her voice matched her ghost like appearance; it was soft and melodic, like wisps of smoke on the air. Lower than expected, maybe, and detached. "I set it up at the start of our match."

The kunai that had gone wide. Looking from left to right, Sakura saw them, and their tags that had overflown with ink and the scrawling lines of a seal that ran between them and out to two others behind Shiohi. A cage. Probably not one strong enough to hold back any half decent Chuunin, but one sturdy enough that Sakura's body weight and some momentum knocked against it wouldn't get it to break.

Sakura frowned, pushed herself to her feet. It was never a good thing when ninja went into exposition but she was curious. "Why bother? We have a ring already."

"I have discovered it is easier for my technique when the target cannot run." Recited like a fact, nothing more. But the way Shiohi had said _target_ came across more like _prey_.

Sakura let her expression relay her thoughts of 'you're extremely weird, even in this kind of profession.' And then, she thought, what technique?

"It was such a relief, having you as my opponent, Haruno-san. I cannot practice this sort of jutsu when my partner is Kurotsuchi, beloved granddaughter of the Tsuchikage. Or even around Nakagawa-sensei, it would be too difficult to stop myself, I think. You...are different. I have no reason to hold back."

"Diplomatic immunity?" Sakura ventured, but the humour in the air from her joke evaporated as something else overwhelmed it. Energy. Intense, thick, numbing energy.

Sakura could see it, too, Shiohi had finished a set of seals and was glowing a vibrant aquamarine. Sakura launched two handfuls of shuriken at the girl, curious. Shiohi, with minimal movements, deflected every one with a kunai.

"Nice try, but I set up three times as many to come at me in practice." The same gentle smile. The glowing around her must have been chakra, Sakura thought, and it changed from an amorphous cloak into thousands of little threads reaching out into the air around Shiohi. A sea anemone of energy. Shiohi teased, "now, are you ready for my retaliation?"

It was due time for more explosive tags, then. Sakura had about a thousand on her, thanks to her sensei's preference for them. She only had so many kunai remaining, however. She ran alongside the edge of the barrier, tossed three tags at her opponent, then flinched as the colourful threads struck out and pierced through the tags, making them defunct, before Shiohi snatched the three kunai from the air.

Sakura baulked and held back a nervous breath of laughter. That was a neat trick for a genin. She was down another couple of weapons and now she was arming her opponent as well.

The chakra that had snaked around the kunai was shooting out at her. Sakura couldn't keep the surprise from her face as she dodged the offending tendrils. They pursued her with the ease of something more or less like water vapor. Sakura used shunshi again, hoping to bypass Shiohi to the other end of the squared off platform.

Seemingly having foreseen this move, Shiohi had directed her chakra in the same direction and the strands were stretching out for Sakura even as she got her bearings. She tried to move again, but wasn't fast enough. A thick thread, formed from the massing of many smaller ones, had wrapped around her ankle and up over her calf and knee.

She tensed, waiting for the thing to whip back and send her flying.

Instead she screamed as the skin and tissue under the aquamarine chakra opened up as if being unzipped.

Agony.

Sakura reacted instinctively, chakra gathering into her palm as she slammed it down through Shiohi's extension. The chakra thread shattered, the piece around her leg dissipating and the other retreating. But the force of Sakura's hit, the unbridled, instinctual amount of chakra she had channelled into her hand, was perhaps a little much. Her hit made the entire platform rumble and a series of concentric rings of uneven ground to rise and lower like the shock of a rock dropped into a pond.

The arena was quiet.

"Ah...that was an interesting ninjutsu. An Earth style, though?" Shiohi had managed to remain standing, arms braced as she held a seal and her technique. "Why did you not use that earlier?"

The blood collecting under Sakura's leg was cool, but running over her skin it was hot yet. The smell was clean and metallic. No burning, no decay, no waste, just good old fashioned blood fresh from the veins. Sakura could feel her body trembling from the shock of the damage. It had been such a clean, devastating slice. Like a scalpel, but her flesh almost seemed to cut up in repulsion of itself. There was too much blood, too much tissue, it was too much damage.

 _Run,_ she thought. It was a primal response. She needed distance.

"Let us try again, Haruno-san. I don't think I quite got to the real meat of the muscles and I missed severing your tendons."

Understanding that it could be worse, _so much worse_ , spurred Sakura into moving. There was nowhere to go but up.

She realised why Shiohi had utilised the barrier, because each time chakra came from the anemone cloak, the cloak would shrink and compensate. There was a limit to how much it could extend. And being that Shiohi had set the barrier up in a certain way, Sakura deduced that she could work quite well and comfortably within that space. The one hope Sakura had was that Shiohi hadn't accounted for the open air up at the ceiling of the building.

Sakura ran up the invisible barrier, creating clones to disguise her actual location. Nine more copies, same as before.

Time was important. It just wasn't possible that an advanced technique like that could be sustained for very long. Not unless the girl had an unbelievable amount of chakra. If Sakura could just get to the ceiling – ah, it was not to be.

"Clones will not work when I can easily spot your shadow, Haruno-san."

 _Ah, fuck!_ Sakura felt the odd warmth of the aquamarine chakra coil around her once more. Shiohi had caught the same leg again and the arm on that same side. As the chakra tightened, following her even as Sakura kept trying to increase the distance, its nature changed to that razor sharpness, slicing through bandages, fabric, and skin alike.

A petrifying shock of pain as the wounds were inflicted simultaneously. Her footing on the barrier slipped and she dropped. She had to cradle the fall or be crushed, on top of merely being shredded, but her limbs were unresponsive.

She wasn't crushed.

Shiohi skidded under Sakura as she plummeted, managing to catch her and absorb the impact of the fall. They were on the ground, Shiohi cradling her almost gently.

"Don't do that," Shiohi said. "It would be a shame for our fight to end so soon. I have so much more I would like everyone to see. And you are the only one I can hurt."

Sakura felt her body twitch with residual pain. She was inside the other girl's chakra cloak, laid out in Shiohi's lap, and from her new angle, Sakura could see the perspiration on the girl's face. There were other signs, too, of exertion and Sakura narrowed her eyes. How much longer did she have? Did either of them have?

Everything in her body protested the action, but Sakura raised a hand, open palm and non-threatening in its speed.

Shiohi directed the chakra tendrils to wrap around Sakura in overlapping ribbons. Her low, ethereal murmur, "how about a consolatory hug?"

The first time the chakra had snagged her, Sakura had broken through it with a chakra enveloped hand. And as Shiohi encompassed her in a razor hold from head to toe, Sakura could not manage the strength to scream as she ripped open.

She just watched as her own hand, glowing just as insistently, slipped through Shiohi's cloak and with the remaining energy she could summon – Sakura struck the girl in the throat.

O O O


	9. Lump In Your Throat

 

O O O

_and the walls caved in, and the well went dry, and the mountain shook_

O O O

 

Victory was heavy and it made Sakura's head lull awkwardly on her shoulders.

Medic-nin had gathered her from the arena floor and taken her to a secluded room for treatment. Shiohi hadn't been far behind.

Sakura was conscious and mildly alert as the team of two medic-nin worked on the many lacerations running up, down, and across her body. 'Mildly alert' with a system full of medicine to help dull the excruciating pain. She wasn't even able to lie down properly, and instead she was hovering at an odd angle, suspended in the air by some sort of jutsu. And yet she could feel the prick and tug of stitches sewing her wounds shut. Treatment was weird in Iwagakure. The energetic burn-off of healing chakra, medicinal ointments, and the soft cotton of bandages all smelled the same, though, she thought.

Prick. Tug. Prick. Tug. The awareness of the stitching was the unpleasant part.

One of the two medic-nin was doing something to the closed over cuts, but Sakura didn't know what. Perhaps speeding along their tissue regeneration or something. Perhaps healing the tissue below. One of them had said how it was lucky in a way that it had been chakra cutting her open, as the wounds were easier to clean and stitch. Shiohi hadn't been as successful as she wanted in the damage inflicted in terms of depth.

Sakura didn't doubt the kunoichi would get to doing that amount of damage one day, though.

It was weird how she was in the same room as Sakura, too. Laid out on a cot to the left, throat wrapped up and no longer collapsed. The hit Sakura had dealt the girl might have killed her if not for the immediate intervention of the medic-nin. He had been able to keep her from suffocating.

Awful, too, Sakura thought, that she could have killed a girl in a _mock_ tournament of all things. In the moment, Sakura had really felt she was going to die and that she might as well not go alone. Now that she was passed out and patched up, though, Shiohi was not nearly as scary. Less deserving of death, somehow. Especially less so in sleep, as Shiohi was almost pleasant looking in her slumber in the way that most people are; face uncovered, tensionless expression, and hair fanned out to the side. Not quite the ghost-like girl any more, and certainly not the ghost she could have been.

Alive and not so scary, but Sakura sort of hated her.

….Prick, tug, ...Prick, tug.

Nearly half the surface of her body had been cut with Shiohi's technique. Sakura should have died, too. Two genins decking it out to the death? Such a thing was unheard of to her. She doubted it had ever come to that in Konoha. Rivalries and conflict were the sort of things to keep day to day interesting! Like her rivalry with Ino. Genin weren't supposed to _die_. They needed to survive the low level in order to get to the higher levels.

But shinobi like Shiohi should not be genin. That was just too cruel.

Of course, when Sakura thought about it objectively, Shiohi's technique was imperfect. There were many faults and things to exploit – it wasn't ready for a true battle out in the field. A nature affinity would have proved particularly useful and the girl was vulnerable to long range attacks. If Shiohi had been in a fight outside the arena with someone like Deidara, who could have used douton jutsu against her, there was no way the girl would have lasted. She was too inexperienced and it was obvious she had never had another person to help identify the flaws of the jutsu. The downfall of the solitary, self-made ninja.

Shiohi had the right bloodlust for a ninja though. None of the naïvety that Sakura had.

And just like that, Sakura went from sort of hating the girl to being curious about her. Like ...why was she such a _complete_ _psychopath?_ Why would she have developed _that_ type of ninjutsu? And how did she even conceptualise it, create it?

And vaguely, less pressing, who, specifically, had she created it to kill? Because that was a jutsu meant to kill.

Prick, tug, prick, tug.

Oh, well, Sakura thought, she wasn't really too concerned. It was just...someone was clearly suffering in some way. She was merely curious.

But it wasn't Sakura's place to interfere, that much was certain.

There did seem to be a lot of drama in Iwagakure. So unlike Konohagakure, she thought. The most drama she had ever known in her childhood had been over Naruto's perverted henge jutsu. And maybe the incidents of spying that happened last summer in the women's baths and the culprit turned out to be a disciple of the Third.

Sakura didn't think she had ever known a person with such a grudge as to want to _kill_ someone. The whole idea was a little intense and more than a little sad. Those sort of vendettas were meant for works of fiction, not for real live, working ninjas. Ninjas couldn't afford to harbour such things, not when alliances were constantly shifting. A shinobi could swear vengeance on someone and then the next day some client could hire the two for the same job, or the two could find themselves with a common enemy and forced to cooperate.

It occurred to her then – as she hadn't needed to think about it in depth before – there just wasn't room for vendettas in her line of work.

So Sakura frowned at the girl on the cot and thought...she didn't _hate_ her. Sure, they had both tried to kill each other, but such was the life of ninja. They had both given the fight their all in the end and hadn't that been Sakura's goal? Technically, Shiohi had only been _more_ than helpful.

Hah. What a weird thought.

"You mud-eating block head," someone barked, drawing her from her internal monologuing and introspection. She winced with recognition. Deidara came into sight, cutting off Sakura's view of her former opponent and essentially ending all musings of the girl.

"Hello dear, wonderful sensei," Sakura greeted, voice rough and words slow with pain-numbing medication. "You're not mad, right? You think my fight was a total ... _blast_ , right?"

Deidara was pouting. The expression seemed starker with his shorter hair. And his body was tense, arms crossed over his front, fingers flexing nervously into his biceps. Her little joke didn't sway him. "You should have been on the offensive more, it was obvious that bastard's chakra wasn't always harmful. Can't believe you missed that, yeah. Could have slipped past it way sooner. Instead now you're going to be a mummy for the rest of the rounds."

Of course he wasn't mad that she almost ended up _dying_. But then – he was right about the chakra cloak. Sakura should have come up with a better strategy. Yawning, she said wearily, "oh, if sensei is just here to lecture me...I'll just get back to resting..."

She let her eyes close, her breathing even out.

"Don't pretend to be asleep!" Deidara flicked her chin, one of the few areas unaffected by the jutsu. "I've been watching the other matches down below in order to get more information for you, yeah. They're fixing the stadium now, so I got a minute. Kuro-chan really mopped the floor with that last one."

Uugh, _Kuro-chan_. What a stupid, cutesy thing to say. Pinching her brows together, she said, "relay the intel when I'm not so tired...I'm good for it. I _am_ the brainy one..."

"...Sprout, you are _not_ on my level." Clearly, he was the brainy one, she brainily deduced he was insinuating.

"Says the guy who got his hair stuck in a hair dryer not two weeks ago," Sakura felt obliged to remind.

One of the medic-nin, the one who had healed Sakura's burns after her first match, laughed at Deidara's expense. The man quieted and cleared his throat. Seizing the attention on him and redirecting it, he said, "I'm sorry, but neither of you seem well in the head if you think Haruno-san will be competing today."

"This guy is laughing at me and now he's insulting me, yeah."

"I'm perfectly well in the head," Sakura insisted, feeling drool seep from the corner of her mouth. Drugged, yes, but also perfectly well in the head!

Deidara gave her a look that suggested he might have disagreed. Probably because of the drool.

The medic-nin explained, "even replenishing your blood, and you lost a lot Haruno-san, will take time. Your wounds won't heal fast enough to ensure you won't reopen them the moment you move too thoughtlessly."

"I'm a kunoichi, I _never_ move thoughtlessly." Unless there was something icky on her, like a spider or something.

"Then recklessly," the the medic-nin countered.

Deidara exchanged a look with his student. He was grinning, eyebrows up.

"Sensei... _reckless_ is not a compliment... _"_ Sakura frowned at Deidara, who didn't drop the satisfied gleefulness, then frowned in the general direction of the man worrying over the wounds around her neck, where the most serious damage had been done. When had perfect student Haruno Sakura, the demure and feminine image she had spent so long cultivating, become _reckless_? She hadn't. Such a thought!

She was perfectly composed and perfectly well in the head, Sakura decided as she hovered in place while the many lacerations on her body were sewn shut. She was just tired was all.

Neither student nor teacher wanted to address the possibility of Sakura not being able to fight. Deidara glanced around the room, seeking a new topic. He noticed Shiohi in the cot and motioned to her with a thumb. "So how about that one? Somehow you managed _not_ to kill her, yeah."

Conspiratorially, his eyes about the room, he leaned forward with a hand cupping his mouth. "Want me to finish the job, Sprout?"

Sakura recognised his ever present erring-on-the-edge-of-proper Iwa nin humour immediately for what it was.

Acting as though she were seriously considering it, Sakura 'hmmed.' It was getting hard to keep her eyes open. The effort to speak airily was considerable. "No. I believe I shall keep her around. She will be fine sparring material." Thinking a moment more, she asked, "where's her sensei, anyway? Shouldn't she have some company right now?"

Deidara shrugged. "Nakagawa's probably being interrogated. Iwa doesn't like techniques like Shiohi's popping up out of nowhere. The second she's awake they'll find her, too. Have the whole 'Preservation for Clan techniques and Bloodline Limits' blah, blah, blah division in here trying to sort her out. They'll want to know where the hell her kekkei genkai comes from."

Sakura inclined her head as much as she could, but the medic-nin's small scoff made her give the man a curious glance.

Her sensei had caught the noise, too. "What, yeah? You think I'm wrong about those bastards hoarding –"

"No, it's not that." The medic-nin worked as he spoke, "but that girl wasn't using a kekkei genkai. I recognised it immediately; she was using medical ninjutsu. While the cloak was mostly a scare tactic, she hid a thread in the arms that was utilised like a chakra scalpel once Sakura was in her grasp."

After a brief pause, he mused, "she must have excellent chakra control, even to maintain the technique for such a short amount of time. Self-taught, though, it was quite unrefined."

Glaring for no apparent reason at the man, Deidara bemoaned of him, "ah, seriously, I don't know if he's an annoying guy or a useful guy."

Sakura ignored her sensei to glance at the aforementioned girl, a sudden, most unwelcome, sense of kinship blooming. Or rather, maybe just some inspiration. She would never have imagined using medical ninjutsu offensively, it just didn't click with the image she had of medics. Chakra control, when so precise and so exact, had more pros than she had first suspected. To think it could be used in so many different ways...

The furtive, appreciative look didn't slip pass Deidara. Sakura was too obvious with her heavy eye lids and general drowsiness to fool him.

"Don't be so admiring. She almost killed you, you know," he murmured.

Not entirely the full story. It had been Shiohi who had collapsed, gasping for what should have been her last breaths as her throat caved in. Sakura had seen it up close. Not a very pretty sight. But also, yes, Shiohi _had_ almost killed Sakura – and in such an unusual manner. No clan background, no bloodline limit, just _control, cleverness,_ and the determination to use those two attributes.

Delicately deciding not to argue Deidara's point, Sakura smugly informed her sensei, " _y_ _ou'_ ve almost killed me numerous times and I still keep you around."

This made Deidara snort, though she couldn't see his expression. Her eyes were closed; sleep did sound so good. "Like it's a choice, yeah." He paused. "...Sure do raise 'em soft in Konoha."

"Mm-hm..." Sakura wasn't able to shake herself awake. Something warm and rough skimmed over her knuckles, and as she finally gave into sleep, she felt her sensei's grip around her fingers.

Prick, tug, prick, tug.

Deidara's presence remained steady until everything went black.

Her hand twitched. She had drifted off to sleep, and had dreamed in half-formed thoughts even. The black was heavy but retreating, and or her sense, her hearing came back from the void first. The room was loud in all the little noises of a quiet place. Wind outside the window, the beep of a heart rate monitor – hers, she thought – and the gentle shuffle of linen fabric as she moved her stiff limbs.

The usual disorientation of coming out from a drug-induced sleep made Sakura blink and look around the room she was in with a stupid expression. Time had passed, she realised.

She jolted with the realisation that she had company.

There was dry drool on her face as she focused on the man standing at the foot of her cot. She was still in the temporary med bay, and none of the medic-nin were in the room. Deidara was absent. Shiohi, too, had conspicuously vanished. Sakura seemed to be on the same cot the other girl had previously occupied.

Rubbing at her face and eyes, she stared at the stranger with obvious curiosity.

The man gave her a bland smile. He was maybe in his twenties or thirties, with roughly cut dark hair tied back in a pony tail, his fringe long and hiding one side of a sharply defined jawline. Not especially intimidating or stunningly attractive, but he was about average height and had a typical shinobi build. There were scars on his olive face, white and thin and scraping over his lips. His eyes were hooded and shockingly grey, almost like steel. His uniform was unusual for Iwa, lacking the usual asymmetrical elements, and mostly hidden away under a long, dark duster. His posture assumed confidence and the promise of authority. It was somehow plain he was a higher ranking officer.

"How are you feeling, Sakura-san?" He finally said when she had finished her appraisal. He had a Bland smile and an intelligent gleam in his cold eyes.

"I feel like I've been filleted and glued back together," she quipped, sounding too relaxed. Oh, oops. Was she _really_ not a demure, proper woman? Oh, woe for all those years of effort. She tried again, "please excuse me in my ignorance, but who are you?"

"My name is Sato," the man said, letting his rigid stance give way as he walked around the cot. Almost idly, his fingers found the intravenous line hooked into her arm. Glancing at her and perking the bland smile for a beat. "You wouldn't have any reason to know me, so you are excused."

Sakura knew the gesture with the IV line was harmless enough, but she felt her heart _thump_ with sudden trepidation. Glancing from Sato's eyes to the line and back, she asked, "where's my sensei?"

There was a hint of raised eyebrows at the word 'sensei'. "Deidara-kun? He's just outside. I asked him to leave the room so that we might have a moment to get to know each other."

"Oh." She didn't know why exactly, but the fact that this man was alone with her in the room and with Deidara's knowledge – perhaps even his _permission_ – inspired a pang of betrayal in her chest. She trailed off, feeling the need to explain, "I guess I thought...he would still be here."

Then, almost hopefully, she asked, "are you another medic-nin?"

"Is that what you think I am?"

Her face was too sore to form the frown she wanted to make. She answered honestly, the words tumbling from her before her thoughts had even fully formed. "I...maybe I was hoping so...but no. You look different. You seem like you're here for something else."

"Ah, you're right. I'm not a medic-nin." Sato's hand on the IV line lazed down until he was running fingertips on her blanket. Without invitation, he took a seat on the cot, placing himself near her legs.

It was an intrusion. Sakura inched up, pushing herself away, something caught in her throat.

He noticed, "ah – ah. No need to yell."

She couldn't even as she tried. Her breathing was raspy and forceful and nothing escaped her throat but little gasps of struggling.

"That's good. Quiet, now." He said. "I'm only here to talk."

O O O

His student did not take her time in doing things – and that included falling asleep. They had spoken only for a few minutes before she had passed out.

Deidara supposed there really wasn't much besides that Sakura could manage in her current condition. Too bad, she had fought well and he was convinced she could have won another round. He had been looking forward to her facing off against a natural adversary like Kurotsuchi, just to see how Sakura would have weaselled her way to victory. More admirable than her smarts, Sakura had a shit ton of perseverance; if there was a goal, she would get to it.

"Don't screw this one up, yeah," Deidara groused at the two medic-nin working on his student. They didn't know it, but she wasn't just any old genin patient they could mince up.

The medics shared a glance, one even appeared to smirk.

Haughty bastards. Medic-nin and hospitals and _treatments_ – horrible things all. Deidara knew it was best to avoid them and self-treat.

But Sakura's Konoha liaison, Otsuka-san, was watching the Mock Ups that day and, after seeing the bloodbath, had been very adamant about _proper_ medic-nin giving Sakura _proper_ treatment. Like Deidara wasn't just as capable of stitching someone up – most people who have been on the kind of missions he had been on had at least some awareness of basic medical jutsu. He would have done a fine job of it.

There _had_ been a lot of blood, of course. And a lot of it on the outside where it didn't belong, but he was not the squeamish sort when it came to injuries. Part of life, yeah.

Eyeing the two medic-nin once more, Deidara let his student's hand go. Things to do and all.

"You'll stay with her, you know, to monitor things?" He asked, pausing to glare at the talkative one of the two.

"Of course."

"Right." Not entirely convinced, he added, "that liaison lady, Otsuka-san, will be by to see her, yeah."

"You're student will be fine." And they had shooed him from the room.

He was temporarily stunned with his sudden freedom for movement. No Mock Ups, no student, no obligations.

The Mock Ups had been a nice opportunity for Sakura to get some fighting experience with various people, and he was pleased with that, but the event had also given him a reason to be in the heart of the village for several hours without anyone thinking much of it. Since his probationary period, he'd had some minor setbacks when venturing down from his studio. Lousy bastards were suspicious or something.

Not that they didn't have good reason and it was actually testament to their shinobi senses that they were aware, at least somewhat, of Deidara's ambitions. It was just annoying as hell to deal with all the time, it was like, _come on_ , just let a fellow sneak around a little.

All he wanted was some information about a jutsu, really. Never mind that it was a forbidden, S-Rank ninjutsu – Deidara felt that it was truly _meant_ for him. No, better yet, not for him so much as for the sake of _art_. And if that old grandpa Oonoki really hadn't wanted his former student to steal the jutsu, then he wouldn't have gone on mentioning it that one time when he was drunk at the Spring Festival.

Practically _telling_ him to take it.

Which made the extra security that followed him at times both a little insulting and a delightfully welcomed challenge.

The team had been monitoring him since his arrival at the inner village limits. And now, outside the medic bay, he discovered an opening in the normal surveillance. A henge here, some quiet wall hugging there, a few shunshin, some concealment genjutsu...hell the plan made itself.

It had been months, but he had the opportunity, finally, to get what he wanted.

Purely reconnaissance this time; get into the archives, memorise the composition of the seal around the shelves where they kept the really good stuff, and get out. A bit of a hassle, really. Deidara had been sure that he would have been able to figure out the jutsu on his own, doing his best to reconstruct it, but it was taking too long. He didn't have forever to work on it. It was a pain to admit as much, but a few notes and tips along the way could only be helpful. There was something to be said about being a self-made shinobi, but there wasn't any shame in building off the work of others. He could give the Masters of Old their due credit.

Deidara didn't take his time leaving the arena, finding a window to hop out of at the best opportunity, immediately cloaking his visual presence and masking his chakra. Outside it was cool and dry, everything blanketed in a grey that promised rain. It made the stone beneath him slick, but he had no trouble adjusting his movements as he darted between buildings and across the crevices of rock formations that made up the village. Bridges were for suckers!

He used a henge to don the guise of a child, a little rough looking and shoeless like any number of the orphans in the city, and made his way to the Tsuchikage Tower. Closer to the tower, he favoured a genjutsu to cover his movements, one that displayed a time lapse image. He waited for a clear coast of traffic and went inside through a less widely used door.

The whole escapade took about four minutes, and most of that was used to memorise the seals.

Kami, he couldn't wait for the occasion when he actually swiped the scrolls and maybe someone would have the decency to notice and provide some chase. While his art remained the driving force behind his action, there was real enjoyment to be had in showing someone – convincing them of – the superiority of _SuperFlat_ in battle.

It was just satisfying having them get caught up in the experience of the thing. And oh how the jutsu he was after would help in his versatility in the heat of the moment, the rate of which he could mould and create works to be made into art.

He was between buildings again, thoughts busy with plans as he took a roundabout way back to the arena, when he was stopped by someone calling his name.

"Odd to be out right now, eh, Deidara-kun?" The low and cheerful voice made Deidara instantly tense with all its false gentleness.

"Sato-senpai," he replied, forcing himself to turn around and face the man. He couldn't quite bite out the polite 'how are you'.

Since he had met the man nearly a decade ago, nothing much had changed. Same outfit, same hair, same unwelcome presence. It was like he had a beacon that went off whenever Deidara wanted to get something done. He was always Showing up at all the most inopportune times in all his boring, tightass kind of glory.

Sato had been the team captain on Deidara's last _real_ mission, and the very person he suspected had booted him from the active duty roster for S-Rank missions. Bastard. So Deidara blew up _one_ drug caravan and pissed off _one_ tribal lord (who was a complete dirtbag), was that really so unforgivable? Sato must have loved it, knocking Deidara down from the inside, while he himself just happened to be in a position where Deidara couldn't touch him. Oh, but how the man loved to keep a thumb on him.

"The Leaf kunoichi had awful luck today."

Deidara reigned in his knee-jerk reaction.

 _Leaf kunoichi, Leaf kunoichi_. That's all anyone wanted to mention to him lately. S-Rank criminals looking to recruit, casually drop _Leaf kunoichi_. Dirtbag shinobi with stick up his ass looking to demote Deidara to genin, taunt him with _Leaf kunoichi_.

"My student did just fine in the ring, yeah." And her name was Sakura, asshole.

The smile raised for a second, like it hit a bump on a path with a _jolt_ , up and down. "Ah, but isn't she in medical care now? I heard it was serious."

Deidara rolled his eyes. What the hell did the man stand to gain by insinuating he wasn't being a good teacher. That was it, yeah? She was still in one piece – and Deidara was very happy to keep her that way. He just also had other things to do. Shit, he never signed up for this gig. "What, yeah? Her clothes were shredded in the last match, I'm trying to find her some replacements."

Internally, he complimented himself for the smooth cover. And, come to think of it, not really a bad idea to find something for the Sprout. She'd probably whine the whole way back to the studio if she were left to wear the hospital garb she'd been forced into.

Externally, he waited for the rebuff from the no talent, table jockeying, bureaucratic hack bastard. The least preferred type of opponent, really.

"How thoughtful. Would you like me to have Otsuka-san help you?"

"I can manage," Deidara mumbled, turning again to go.

"Take care then, Deidara-kun."

Deidara mimed that back to man, uttering it under his breath, "take care then!"

But some time later, standing at the back of a clothing store, he did sort of wish he had Otsuka-san around if just to get a second opinion. Sakura tended towards reds and blues, sometimes with white accents. But really, what a deplorable colour scheme; she looked much better in his sea-green dogi than anything she had packed herself.

Of course, it was her _clan_ symbol and colours, so they were sacred to her. Red, though? How harsh with her hair.

He bought her a couple athletic shirts reminiscent of her other outfits, if just to keep her from questioning why he would have picked anything else.

Deidara considered buying her sandals as well. Maybe shorts, too? Ah, but how to guess her size? Tiny Pipsqueak, he would venture. The mesh armour had treated her well; maybe a spare would be good. She could probably use another kunai pouch, hers was looking worn.

"Need any help, sir?"

Looking up from the shin guards he had in his hand, Deidara gave the shop assistant a once over. Red hair, long and in loose waves, looked like a kunoichi. Cute, too. "Actually, yeah. You're about my student's size, could you try these on?"

The trip to the shop had taken a mite longer than originally intended, but Deidara left feeling proud of himself. He was such a good sensei, looking after his unfortunate student. He had his purchases stored away in a scroll and decided to surprise her with his grand generosity after a good meal. Something to raise her spirits again. She might have been pale and cut up from the fights, but she had been disappointed to lose in the second round. He could tell.

Maybe in a few days they could do something fun for training. Something with explosives?

Entering the Mock Ups arena again, he saw that Kurotsuchi was in the final four. Her opponent was an inheritor of the Kamano clan and a fairly adept user of their technique. Deidara watched the match, unsurprised with the end results. No one had yet to outsmart Kurotsuchi, all falling wayside to the overwhelming power of her kekkei genkai and fighting charisma.

Amateurs. Kurotsuchi was a powerful opponent, but everyone had their flaws.

Thinking on it, though, he might look into bolstering Sakura's offensive ninjutsu somehow. Perhaps look into sharing some of his own genjutsu. Give her an unexpected edge beyond her enhanced chakra. She had a talent for hand seals, too. And she was the academic, liked-to-memorise-textbooks sort of person. There were many avenues for her to still explore.

Deidara made his way back to the med-bay before his fan, Kurotsuchi, could find him (or before his anti-fan could find him; Touketsuchi was likely hovering around as well).

The murmuring of voices reached him before he could make his way inside. He recognised the two speakers and he tried not to hurry in his steps.

Swinging the door open, he noticed the switch in Sakura's situation, noting absently that the other genin had been removed. He grinned at his revived student and Otsuka, who was standing by her cot. "Sprout, yeah, back to the land of the living?"

Sakura was not quite as flush and healthy looking as he would have liked, and the cuts across her body were thick and pink in their newly formed scar tissue, but she was smiling and that set him at ease. There did remain a certain tired glassy quality to her eyes, but she sounded like her upbeat self when she spoke. "Back and in the nick of time, too."

"Eh?"

Otsuka bowed her head in greeting. "Deidara-kun! How are you?"

"What's going on?" He looked between the two, feeling something out of place.

"I have some news you might like to hear." Otsuka smiled, her voice sing-song. "The Tsuchikage would like to send you on another mission."

O O O


	10. Tar in Tile Life

O O O

_dying just to throw me, downcast whiplash down in the stall_

O O O

Deidara had a very elite skill set, refined over many years and many missions; he was a master shinobi with hardened battle senses.

And so when he got a kinda wiggy vibe from the new mission Otsuka had handed them, he knew to follow his intuition.

They were not going, and he had told the woman as much. Sakura was having a hard time accepting his refusal, even now, hours after the fact.

He shook his head and reiterated, "nope, we're not going."

"How can you refuse, though? And don't you think it would be nice to get out and stretch our wings a little?" Sakura was on his back as he walked, arms around his neck, legs bent at the knees on his sides. The clothing he had gotten her had pleased her, and so she was in better spirits after her rounds in the tournament. She rested her head on his shoulder, a pout evident in her voice. "Today was such a downer and this mission sounds doable. Basically just stepping in on babysitting duties. Super easy stuff."

"Sprout, retrieving a drugged out, intoxicated, spoiled teenager from an opiate den is not _easy_." Not really hard, but it was annoying. And it was just _so_ suspicious. Hadn't he just been thinking about his last mission with Sato when this sudden mission with uncanny similarities happened to drop in his lap after seeing the man in question. Nope, they weren't going to do it. It was too fishy.

And especially after Deidara's mission in Keryiat – _that_ had clearly gone well. Ah, but then, he supposed they _had_ managed to quell the labour dispute...if only by entirely removing the need for the labour in the first place. Not exactly a winning mission for Iwa in the records.

He was decided. They weren't going on this new mission – even though Sakura was hearing none of it. Sounding a touch defeated, she asked, "is it because you don't think I can handle it?"

Pfft. As if he had ever been one to coddle anything or anyone, let alone her. But there was a point in there. "You're stitched up like a doll that's been through a shredder, yeah."

"It's scar tissue, nice and tough already. I'll be fine."

"You haven't seen yourself yet." He meant it to come across less harsh, but bit the inside of his cheek when he felt the girl on his back stiffen ever so slightly. "Just wait until after your second healing session, when everything is set better."

"Hm," she replied after a moment. Rallying herself, she tried instead a more diplomatic approach. "We'll talk more after we eat, I guess."

As if food would change his mind. But there was her shining determination, even when he'd rather not have it.

It was evening and the city was lit up with oil lamps and lanterns. Everything had a sort of sheen to it from the earlier rain shower. Sakura had sighed and said it was pretty. She seemed less excited by the prospect of going through the rain soaked mokuton forest than the city roads.

"So dark," she mumbled, burying her nose in his shoulder as they stood at the cliff top.

"Scared?" He teased around a smirk.

"I just have this image of you slipping on a wet branch and the two of us falling to our deaths."

Ah, probably like she had nearly dropped to her death earlier in the day. ...Right. She was still new to stuff like that. He would have to change that.

"You would catch yourself. You're a kunoichi, right?"

"Hm..."

Was that self-doubt he heard in her out-of-character, inarticulate, monosyllabic response? Where the hell was that suddenly coming from? What was he, some chump sensei who was teaching some wimpy louse? _Tch_. Kids were so sensitive these days. And up and down with their emotions all over the place, distracted and needy all at once; so uncool.

Maybe Sakura did need the mission to clear her head, to get her priorities back together. And he didn't really care, it was just that - her company was much more preferable when she was cheerful and focused. He wasn't bummed because she sounded down or anything.

They could handle the mission, really, though. Deidara would cut off his arm the day Sato pulled a fast one on him. They could definitely handle the mission. Retrieving a runaway teen, escorting him home? That wouldn't be a problem.

But as to more pressing matters – "So you're not interested in running through the canopy tonight, yeah?"

He felt the girl shrug. Vaguely, she asked, "remember that first day? When I got here and I couldn't even climb down the cliffs?"

There was something in her light tone of voice that suggested self-deprecation. She went on, "and months later we're back at this spot and guess what? I can't climb down it."

Now she was just being difficult.

"Extenuating circumstances. Besides, you probably could. Medic-nin are just overly cautious, yeah."

Sakura seemed to be contemplating the darkness of the forest floor. Lost in memories or something.

"Well there's always another way when you're a ninja." Deidara said, new decision made and ready to rouse the troops. He motioned for Sakura to slide off his back, which she did, coming around to his side to give him a curious look as he reached for clay from his pouch. He ignored her but couldn't keep from grinning as he worked on his sculpture.

"A bird," she said, sounding unimpressed as the clay took shape under his fingers.

"A bird!" He repeated back, snickering.

"Right."

"What, it's going to fly us home, yeah." He was trying to recover from his snickering, but oh man, he was going to crack up! Hell, it was going to be great seeing her face go all dumb and then incredibly impressed. He reminded himself to stay cool, not show his hand too early.

"Uh-huh."

He finished, and giving her a very pleased grin, he tossed the sculpted clay up and over the cliff. She watched the palm sized bird arc and then start to descend, and gave him a flat look. Deidara released it to its full size out of view and waited as he directed it back to them.

She 'eeped', actually _'eeped'_ , when it gave them a low fly-by.

He broke out into laughter, unable to help himself. "Look at you, yeah! You doubted your sensei and now look at you!"

"It's huge! And...it's sort of beautiful." Sakura curiously unfolded from her brief crouching to watch the bird fly off past them, above the treetops, and tip into a turn; on its way back to them, flying low over the lip of the drop off. "What's it going to do, carry us?"

"We're going to ride it, yeah." She had the grace to give him a surprised glance. Deidara took her hand. "Ready? We're going to leap. Three, two..."

She was laughing too, eyes bright, and he felt her understanding squeeze around his palm even though she was shaking just the smallest bit. But she wanted to leap. Together, "one!"

They weren't in the air long before his feet touched down on the back of his bird, landing a second before Sakura. His stance was firm and hers was unsure, so he tugged her against his body, anchoring her. Smartly, she latched onto the clay with chakra, but she wasn't beyond putting an arm around his middle – just in case. He found he didn't mind so much, not when she was shivering too, probably needed the extra warmth, and still laughing with some amount of exhilaration.

"Ooh, this is incredible! I've never seen this kind of jutsu before. It's really clever, too."

Hell yeah it was! Damn, he was such a good sensei. And look, she was happy again. "Go on..."

She pinched his side, but seemed content. Moving her head to speak into his shirt, and it was hard to hear her as they travelled, "thank you."

The evening went as normal; Deidara cleaned himself up and prepared a meal, and his student disappeared to shower, write home, restock and oil her weapons, organize her equipment, do all the various things girls at that age liked to do. While she was out of the room, rice cooking itself and everything else waiting, Deidara got to work on modifying some of the things he had purchased for the little Leaf sprout. He'd picked up a standard issue Iwa nin shirt for her, as it was close to the shade of red she liked, and had decided to remove the asymmetrical sleeve.

And since he still had time after evening out the seam of the sleeve, he decided to sew on a patch that resembled the white circle of her clan. It kept him busy until the rice finished. Damn, he sure was talented, it was right on centre and the stitches looked perfectly even.

He was holding it up in front of him as he lounged by the table when Sakura came into the room. He stared at her as she stared at the shirt.

"Wha...what's that?" She was smiling but there was disbelief on her face too. "Is that –"

"Nope, not for you, yeah. It's for me. I'm renouncing Iwa and joining the esteemed Haruno clan."

"It's so cute!" Sakura ignored his joke. She almost skipped over to the table and immediately planted herself next to him to pet at the shirt with admiration. He let her have it, watched as she traced the details he had put into it. It made him grin - how she was so easy to please.

"We're going to do the mission." He announced, catching her off guard. She raised her eyebrows. "I need to stretch my legs. It will be good for me."

Sakura looked to the shirt, lips softening to a small smile. Then, perking up, she bounced back to her feet. Energised, as if making a vow, "I'm going to try it on!"

And proceeded to put it on over the tank and shorts she wore to sleep. Deidara tossed a sealing scroll at her. "Put it on properly, like it deserves, yeah!"

"Oh, right!" Not at all discouraged, she flew to the door.

"Sprout," he said, watching as she caught the door edge with one hand and swung back around the frame. He tossed her another scroll. "Try those on as well, yeah?"

Ah, he really was a cool sensei, if he did humbly say so himself.

He set the table and waited for her return.

After a while it became apparent she wasn't in a hurry.

And when he finally grew too impatient and curious about Sakura's loitering, he tracked her down in her room.

As he was a gentleman, he knocked while he pushed the door open, wise crack about her forehead on the tip of his tongue. Spotting her in front of the mirror, the remark died.

She was wearing the red shirt with her clan symbol, her tight black shorts, her new shin guards, had even put on her gear and headband. But it was the way she was staring at her new scars with a cool, detached gaze that truly sold her as a kunoichi.

Resting his shoulder on the door frame, knowing that she had heard him knock, Deidara waited for her to speak first.

After another moment she did. Sakura watched her fingers trace the scars around her neck in the mirror. A twist raised her lip. "I know they'll only be here for so long, but I was just thinking how my mother would absolutely weep if she saw me like this."

Well, that would be a waste. Scars came with the territory, might was well get used to them. "Did she not know what the _ninja village academy_ was or...?"

Sakura scoffed. "She had this idea I would go into intelligence and get a desk job or something. I was actually tapped for the cryptology office after an assessment test last year."

Deidara had a feeling there was nothing he could say to that so he shrugged; delicately, mind you. "Sounds boring, yeah."

Using the mirror, Sakura flashed him a smile, teasing and brilliant. "I'm happy I turned them down." She spun in her spot, hands on her hips. "Alright! Now, are we going to do the fashion show before or after we eat?"

 

O O O

 

For their second mission Deidara had opted to wear his jounin outfit, red shirt and pants, brown vest, black hitai-ate. Standing together in the lobby outside of the Tsuchikage's office, matching in more ways than one, they sort of passed for a normal Iwa cell. They leaned on the wall together, not far from the office doors.

Sakura the _elite_ Leaf kunoichi, she thought, infiltrating the highest levels of Iwagakure at the tender age of twelve. No one was the wiser.

She must have primped a little at this thought because her sensei noticed and gave her a mildly confused, deeply unimpressed look. Okay, so _one_ person out of a crowd of fifty odd was the wiser. But she seemed to blend in because out of all the many shinobi waiting to debrief, to get their mission scrolls, do whatever it was they needed to do in the Tsuchikage's Tower at oh-seven hundred hours, none had given her the normal double take.

It probably helped that she wore her hitai-ate like a headband, the Leaf insignia conspicuously pointed skyward. Maybe it was just that Iwa had too many shinobi altogether for her to stand out in any way. It worked for her, though. Sliding her eyes over to her sensei, she got the distinct impression he would not say the same.

He liked attention and was wilting for the lack of it. But then Deidara's luck turned and Sakura straightened her posture needlessly as a four man cell approached them. Sakura figured the man who talked was the captain.

The captain gave Deidara an easy smile. "Deidara-kun," and then his eyes flickered over Sakura, oddly making her pulse jump, "so then you're taking the mission?"

"Yes, Sato-tai – Sato-san." Deidara's voice was gravelly and it sounded like his teeth were clenched. Sakura gave him a covert, bewildered glance. Someone was sore about something.

"And this must be your student." The man was average looking, typical build for a shinobi, hair pulled back into a ponytail except for the fringe framing one side of his face. Unconsciously, she took in the various scars across his olive skin. Grey eyes, deeply set. Lips that seemed permanently on the edge of smiling, and when he did it was close-lipped and made a dimple on his cheek. He watched her make her quick two second assessment and the dimple made another brief appearance.

"Y-yes," she said quickly. Bowing her head, "Haruno Sakura. Pleased to meet you, Sato-san."

"The pleasure is mine. How exciting to have a Leaf here for peaceful reasons," Sato said in a pleasant, rich voice.

But she couldn't seem to get her heartbeat under control, and her ears were red with a minor flush.

"Nice performance yesterday, Haruno-san. Be sure to take care on your mission." Looking at Deidara with an affable lift to his smile, then giving Sakura a wink, "keep on eye on this one, will you?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

It was a moment after the group of four had gone that Deidara gave in and moaned dramatically at the ceiling. He pulled at his chin length hair. "I really, really fucking hate that guy."

"Language," Sakura half-heartedly admonished. Gesturing in the direction Sato had left, "so what's the deal there?"

"The man is a vision-less, inartistic bastard. He's the stuffy, play by the rules type that makes no sense, _no sense_ , in the shinobi world. He's had it out for me ever since I was hand-waved through the academy. No appreciation for art, no appreciation for genius, yeah!" And then, under his breath, "you blow up _one_ ammunitions compound – _one_ time – that was 'meant to be seized' and the guy looses his shit."

Sakura couldn't help her weird expression; a cross between gawking and frowning suspiciously. "You blew up an entire ammunitions compound?"

"A little one, yeah." Her sensei held up his thumb and forefinger, signalling for something small. "Just a bit."

"But _why_?"

"Do you know the kind of explosion ammunitions make?" Deidara grinned at her, as apparently he knew and apparently it was a fabulous kind of explosion.

She couldn't help a laugh, and hid her face behind her hand, watching him through her fingers before dragging them away. "You are so completely ridiculous. But at least there's consistency in you're manner of being ridiculous."

"Not ridiculous! _Art_. It's very serious." He was pouting, disappointed with how his student just _didn't get it_. "So sad, yeah."

Sakura shrugged. "Well...I guess...I wasn't there to see it, so..."

He raised his eyebrows, grin returning. Latching on to her suggestive hanging 'so,' "Sprout?"

"No, sensei. That wasn't an invitation for you to blow up the opium den."

"She says 'sensei' and then gives the orders, yeah..."

They were signalled to enter the office, the Tsuchikage ready to receive them for their mission.

Sakura - predictably enough, had she given it a thought - was barred from entering the interior office. Which was just the same as the last time they had reported.

Deidara threw his arms behind his head, speaking again to the ceiling in a morose, whimsical way, "aa, no fun. Stay rooted, yeah."

Sakura gave the kunoichi at the door, who was there standing guard, a sheepish grin. What had been her thoughts earlier about an elite Leaf nin? As casually as she could, she lingered around the door and tried not to scuff the tiles too much in her boredom.

It wasn't long before Deidara reappeared, affected air of being bothered in place. As he walked through the door, the Tsuchikage called out, "Deidara. I want the buildings standing and in their entirety after this mission, boy."

Cheerfully, "sure thing, Tsuchikage-sama!"

"And the client would appreciate the same for his son."

"...Well, now you're just being picky, yeah."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at her sensei. He tapped her forehead with the mission scroll in return. Answering to the Tsuchikage, the highest ranked shinobi in the village, over his shoulder, "we'll behave, old man."

His wide eyes and exposed canine seemed to suggest otherwise.

In an hour they were setting out, leaving the village through one of the secure means provided by the Tsuchikage Tower. The Iwa shinobi still, very rightfully, had a hang up about Sakura coming and going any normal way.

"How long a trek is it?" Sakura asked, ever the eager one to know as much as possible.

"Five hours out, allowing for a ten minute break. Sound good, yeah?"

Sakura nodded. Before receiving orders, she had seen the medic-nin again. By sunrise, she had been cleared to go.

"Looks like rain so we'll be on foot," Deidara said, reaching into his pack to unseal a pair of brown travelling cloaks. He tossed one to her, and Sakura ran her fingers over the durable material before swinging the thing over her shoulders. Clasping it shut and pulling up her hood, she found that it was warm and not too heavy. Most importantly, it would keep her dry.

She wiggled her toes and stared down at the sandals, wishing she had considered alternative footwear. "All right, I'm ready."

The travelled through natural stone corridors, running along edges and through avenues only shinobi could easily navigate, and even then Sakura was amazed at Deidara's ability to weave through intertwined passages without trouble. They passed other groups of Iwa nin and at one point Deidara slowed to inform her that they had just gone by what he thought might have been a team of ANBU.

And when Sakura asked how he knew as much, her sensei acted very cool and mysterious. So she made fun of him and then they bickered and finally settled into silence.

Certain towns they went through and others they circumvented. Deidara started talking again, sharing stories of missions past. The first place he had done an A-Rank mission, the place where he had lost a team mate, the spot where there used to be a hostile, underground rebel movement's bunker, the place he had gotten his first handjob -

"What the hell, sensei? I don't want to know stuff like that!"

"Aw, come on, Sprout! This is good stuff, yeah."

"No way! I don't want to hear it. Get back to telling me the classified stuff."

"Hm. Right, well the town we're going into is actually pseudo-run by that pissed off tribal lord I mentioned earlier."

"The one who owned the caravan you 'accidentally' blew up?"

Deidara was excited, probably grinning if she had to tell from his voice. "That's the one!"

"And you're going to walk right in, 'hey, how's it hanging' and you think this will go well?" Unlike shinobi, whom Sakura thought had no place for vendettas, tribal lords in Iwa lived and breathed that sort of thing.

Her sensei scoffed, clearly undeterred. "Just the opposite, I don't think they'll want to say shit to me, yeah."

Sakura looked ahead of them, into the grey evening and thought, ' _we are_ so _going to die.'_

When they arrived at their destination, the town was as she had built it in her mind, perhaps just a little rougher. Multi-story buildings of mismatched materials and overlaid and patched up walls and roofs. Leaking pipes, vents with awful smelling fumes, electrical wires strung haphazardly across alleyways and up buildings to crooked towers, sewer drains that overflowed. Stray animals and people reclining in dry spots, retreated from the areas vulnerable to the rain. Trash piled and littered, surfaces covered in old and new flyers for X-rated clubs. Everything glossy in rain and neon lights.

It was like every seedy bar in Konoha crammed into one town. But still a noticeable step up from Keryiat in a lot of ways. There was a hint of excess money thrumming in the belly of the town.

Deidara and Sakura pulled their cloaks tighter and kept to walking in the shadows. Deidara caught her eye as they adjusted their hoods. "Good thing for these, yeah, we're too pretty for a poorly styled place like this."

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but inwardly recognised there was a sobering thread of truth under his light-hearted tone.

Their client, a wealthy Iwa merchant, had hired the two shinobi to retrieve his son from one of his typical getaways. Apparently the child was his youngest and most troublesome and had been missing from home for nearly a month, slinking between different pleasure houses and dens. The son's name was Mitsuru, he was seventeen and by all accounts a spoiled, ungrateful, bitter, inexplicable rake with a serious drug habit. In the past, it had taken a family retainer or two to drag him home, but lately he had been hiring thugs to pose as his entourage.

But civilian thugs were nothing scary to trained shinobi.

Deidara led them to a squat building with shutters around windows that gave the impression of spectacles around pink glowing eyes. It would have been cutely comical if Sakura had not been already cringing at the pun-inspired name flashing across the building's awning in garish colours. A strip club front with the den in the basement below.

Mitsuru had been in the basement for two days already, not leaving between the highs and lows of opiate-induced sickness. He had sequestered a small private space to himself and had holed himself within it for the time being. Deidara sent in a mobile clay spider to feel out the number of men alongside the target.

"Eight, yeah." Deidara frowned, "and one with a chakra signature."

"A shinobi?"

"Seems like it. They're cloaking it, though, yeah." Cursing as he reclaimed the spider, smashing it back into shapeless clay, "I knew that asshole would pull shit like this."

"Who did what now?" Sakura whispered, trying not to feel bad for the former spider. It had actually been sort of cute.

"That weasel, Sato. I'm sure he's behind this. Hoping I'll go in there expecting a quick recovery, only to get cornered by a hired shinobi and forced into doing something stupid and botching the mission."

"But we got the mission directly from the Tsuchikage, how much could that guy have interfered?"

Deidara was scowling. "I don't know! He just did, yeah. He's a Division leader, he can pull strings."

"We can probably still get in and get out without trouble. Otherwise, I'll know all that stuff about art and genius was just hot air on your part."

The teasing jab didn't stir him.

"Why not use a genjutsu to knock out the civilians and deal with the shinobi separately," Sakura tried.

"Can't mess with systems in case the drugs in them have an adverse reaction."

"Oh," she hadn't known that would be a complication.

Deidara cursed, frowned, then huffed. "I got it."

He was leaning against the wall of the strip club, next to a small window into the basement carved into the ground. There were blinds, but a vent allowed sounds and fumes to escape. A beat passed and then he was raising a hand seal in front of him and closing his eyes. Keeping one hand in the seal, he used the other to start moulding more spiders from his clay. Sakura crouched next to Deidara, watching attentively. She had never been privy to this style of work from her sensei before.

"What I'm doing right now, and I'll tell you as you're my student and you should learn from this, is focusing on reading the chakra signatures inside. Can you feel them?"

Sakura didn't know, she had never really tried to pick up on chakra signals.

"Copy this seal, touch my shoulder with your other hand. ...Feel it, yeah?"

She followed his directions, and with a start, she sensed it. And from there her awareness of something she had always known about but never completely appreciated grew. Another sense like hearing or seeing, but _different._ "I can tell there are...fifteen people in total below us."

"And does one –"

"Feel particularly more noticeable than the others? Yes."

"Picked up on that awful fast." Deidara issued a short laugh and she saw his lips grin. "Usually this is a specialist's duty, but since we're close enough, yeah, we can do this much." He was speaking lowly and paused to breathe. Then, as if directing himself, "all right. Need to determine the location of those inside the room ...move my clay into strategic positions ...make sure no one is close enough to the blasts to _die_ , prepare to blow out the window..."

Sakura watched, nodded along though he couldn't see it. "Can't we just go through the door with a henge? Use a genjutsu on the bouncers?"

"Sprout, I don't know the layout of the building yeah, but I know where these windows go."

Sakura gave her sensei a flat look, again to his utter obliviousness. "Kind of noisy for a ninja, you know."

"Kind of pink for a ninja, yeah."

Ah, point.

"And on the count of three, we slip through the window, move to the back of the room, push through the screen wall, retrieve the kid, take off."

"Sounds a little like you just want to blow something up."

"Controlled explosions, yeah. It is pure strategy, Sprout!"

"There isn't another way?"

Deidara broke his concentration to look at her from behind his blond fringe, his one visible eye wide and disbelieving. "This is the most artistic approach, yeah. I'll be taking out the one with the chakra signature, too. It's a good plan. No one will get _too_ busted up. It's mostly the noise that will disorientate them."

And then he was back to concentrating fully and counting down.

" _Katsu!_ " Deidara pivoted from his crouch and swung through the hollowed out window, Sakura following shortly.

The room was full of smoke from the blast and fumes from pipes, and the air was thick with the smell of filth. Bodies dotted the floor between mats and buckets of vomit, some knocked out from the clay bombs, others incapacitated from their indulgences. Pieces of wall board, stone foundation, and ceiling tile coated everything in a white dust.

Deidara stepped around what he could and over things he couldn't. There was a hole in the shouji screen, a table with passed out men beyond, and then they were through the partition and in the small private space.

Her sensei stopped short, a thin blade resting against his neck. Deidara's arm was out and Sakura stopped short, too, before the metal could touch her.

"You must be a member of the Blast Corps. Interesting having someone like you stop in." The blade, thin and dull around its edges, moved. A melodic, deep voice, "this yours by any chance?"

Sakura watched the blade dance up and down, on its tip was stuck a clay spider.

"If you're here to retrieve Mitsuru-chan, I'll have to stop you." The speaker moved into view. He was slender, thin, dressed in a kimono and hakama and everything about him was grey. Long straight hair, bored eyes, his pale skin, all winter greys but for the charcoal around his eyes and the highlight of red make-up feathering out from their corners. No contrast, just a wisp of vapour.

"Aha, were we that obvious?" Deidara laughed far too cheerfully, raising his empty hands. "I guess you _will_ have to fight me, then."

"What a bother. Couldn't you have just been looking for karaoke?" The man had a sort of daintiness about him, but his stance was solid and relaxed with years of experience. The metal on his forehead, grey and shining in the odd lighting of the room, displayed the symbol for the Village Hidden in the Mist. A dark slash cut across it. "Shall we?"

" _Tch._ Let's."

Sakura dropped into a roll to avoid the two shinobi as they met in a clash. Deidara said he would be fighting the swordsman, so that left acquiring their target, a mere teenaged civilian boy, to Sakura.

Mitsuru was a short, fragile, and not-particularly-pretty-despite-his-styling type of boy. He was half-gone and sneering as Sakura bounced to her feet and leapt for him. Behind her were the sounds of metal skimming against metal. She only had a few metres to clear, already planning how to get behind the boy's left shoulder despite the fact he had backed into a corner.

Her eyes were on the target, her body preparing for a shunshin step, and then grey. At once she felt the sting of a sword scratch the corner of her shoulder and the tug around her middle that pulled her out and away from the strike. Deidara.

"Yes! _Nice_ , Utsumino," the boy crowed.

Sakura refrained from sticking her tongue out.

The swordsman smirked at her as if knowing her thoughts. Then his eyes went around the room, to his feet, clad in traditional geta, and the body he was perching on. "What a shame, such a crowded space. But the boy wishes to stay..."

"Damn. Talk about improvising, I had to toss a bucket at him," Deidara muttered to Sakura, apparently not so happy with the arrangement himself.

Sakura didn't want to know what was in the bucket, but it looked as if Utsumino had dodged it. Glancing at her sensei, she checked to see if it had been deflected on him. But Deidara was clear, for the moment.

She glared at Mitsuru, ready to blame him for the whole unfortunate mess. "No chance you'll go home to your family quietly?"

The question was preposterous judging by the boy's flailing reaction. "Never! They treat me like a slave! I'll never go back to that household."

Sakura shared a look with her sensei. As they were both tools for their governments and currently putting their lives on the line for the sake of a self-entitled boy, it was sadly evident Mitsuru had no idea of the gravity involved in _actual_ struggle. Mitsuru was the third son, not an heir, and not beholden to many of the expectations his eldest sibling had. Considering his circumstance, he had a relatively secure amount of freedom, funds, and access to luxuries. What did he know of servitude?

But they weren't there to enlighten the boy, just to drag him home.

"Find better ways to rebel in the future. Getting a missing-nin involved, yeah. Really bad taste." Deidara shed his cloak. "Eyes sharp, Sprout."

"Is that really your name?" The missing-nin asked, uncertain, as he glanced to Sakura. "Unfortunate..."

Sakura gave him an incredulous stare while Deidara snorted and coughed back a laugh. "It's Haruno Sakura."

"Ah, much more suitable." The man said of himself, "Utsumino Shinju."

"G-good...to meet you."

"And I'm Deidara. No clan name, thanks. Can we get back to it?"

They did, almost immediately. Deidara with a kunai in each hand and Utsumino wielding his thin, pointed sword. It took a minute of the two dancing and dodging around the room and its pillars, over its many low tables and occupants, but Sakura could see that Deidara was at the disadvantage. She waited for a chance to slip by and grab the boy, but Utsumino controlled the movements of everyone in the room.

When a few of the civilian thugs finally roused themselves, Utsumino made sure they were solely engaged with Sakura and out of the way of his bout with Deidara.

It was funny how slow their movements were, how heavily their larger frames fell as Sakura toppled one grown man after the other. Knives, brass knuckles, one even had a staff, and each fell nearly as quickly as the one before. She was sure to make certain they couldn't get back up any time soon, knocking them out or letting them knock themselves out with overblown movements.

The fight was sort of fun, tiptoeing in the crowded space, using the walls and ceilings as much as possible and completely pissing off her opponents. One step too close to Mitsuru, though, and she'd find Utsumino blocking the path. She tried another shunshin, only to find the swordsman had outclassed her and moved the boy by the time she'd finished her step.

He gave an especially charming smile after that move, topping it off with a small wave of the victory sign. He was playing with them.

A man grabbed Sakura from behind, taking advantage of the second she had wasted giving the swordsman the middle finger to yank at her elbow and hair. Sakura stomped her foot, threw her elbow up as the man's head came down crying about his foot. There was a crack as his nose broke, and finding her arms and head free, she spun and planted a kick to his solar plexus. " _Shannaro!_ "

Deidara was fairing significantly worse, but only because he seemed to have resigned himself to not blowing anything up, apparently only willing to use the explosives if in the proper art form. He'd lost his second kunai and the corresponding arm was limp.

Making up her mind, Sakura moved to his side, raising her fist; she had sparred enough with her sensei, knew his movements well enough, to serve as his right hand. "How bad is your arm?"

"It will heal."

"How did he – "

"Channels lightning through the blade."

"Oh."

"Deidara," Utsumino said, lips curling up, "odds on if I can take out the other one as well?"

It was as Deidara raised his hand to make a seal that Utsumino switched his attention to the sleeve of his kimono. Sakura startled at the explosion, multiple blasts, but there was too much smoke suddenly. The room was ringing, or maybe it was just her ears, but she knew, she _knew_ , Deidara was most vulnerable on his right side. Utsumino would counter moving past Sakura to get to him.

She moved on instinct, too shocked with her own ability to correctly calculate Utsumino's attack to think of anything other than stopping him. Chakra gathered in her fist as she knelt low, under the man's guard, and punched up, aiming for his chest to send him reeling back.

A shock of searing, blazing pain went through her body but her arm was already at his sternum. And then it was through his sternum. The searing was there and then it wasn't, but Sakura's arm stayed buried in the man's chest; his bones, innards, and mesh armor cutting into her, tangled in a clawing trap.

Eyes didn't stop reflecting light when a person died, Sakura discovered, staring up into the swordsman pale face. The light didn't go out of them, but suddenly she knew exactly what the phrase meant and that it was completely, horribly accurate. A hair's breadth away as Sakura watched the tension in the muscles around Utsumino Shinju's eyes go slack as the life behind them ceased. Death.

She could feel the cold air hit her fingers from where her hand stuck out from Utsumino's back. Something scraped down her wet palm and fell to the floor; a piece of bone, she thought. The man's taller frame, his muscles, organs, bones, clothing, armour, gear, the weight of it all descended on Sakura's right arm, trapped in the remains of his ribcage. Her knees trembled and she found herself hugging the corpse as she tried to stay upright, and when she couldn't she collapsed to the floor.

Someone screamed, someone shouted, and someone got sick all over her crumpled knees.

O O O


End file.
